SAMUEL  PEPYS 

AND  THE 

ROYAL   NAVY 


CAMBRIDGE   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

C.  F.  CLAY,  Manager 
LONDON    :   FETTER  LANE,  E.  C.  4 


NEW  YORK    :    G.  P.  PUTNAM'S    SONS 

BOMBAY 

CALCUTTA   ■  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LTD. 

MADRAS 

TORONTO  :  J.  M.  DENT  AND  SONS,  LTD. 

TOKYO  :  MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 


ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Ex  Libria 
C.  K.  OGDEN 

SAMUEL  PEPYS 

AND  THE 

ROYAL  NAVY 

LEES   KNOVVLES  LECTURES  DELIVERED 

AT  TRINITY  COLLEGE  IN  CAMBRIDGE, 

6,  13,  20  AND  27  NOVEiVlBER,   1919 


BY 
J.  R.  TANNER,  Litt.D. 

FELLOW  OF  ST  JOHN's  COLLEGE 


CAMBRIDGE 

AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1920 


g 


SANTA   -  —  -_:^ 


PREFACE 


IX  1919  tlie  writer  was  appointed  by  the  Master  and 
Fellows  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  Lees  Knowles 
Lecturer  in  Military  and  Naval  History  for  the  academical 
year  1919-20,  and  the  lectures  are  now  printed  almost  ex- 
actly in  the  form  in  which  they  were  delivered  in  November, 
1919. 

The  object  of  the  Lecturer  was  to  present  in  a  convenient 
form  the  general  conclusions  about  the  administration  of  the 
Royal  Nav}'  from  the  Restoration  to  the  Revolution  arrived 
at  in  the  introductory  volume  of  his  Catalogue  of  Pepysia)i 
Manuscripts,  published  by  the  Navy  Records  Society  in  1903 
with  a  dedication,  in  the  two  hundredth  year  after  his  death, 
'  to  the  memory  of  Samuel  Pepys,  a  great  public  servant' 
The  evidence  there  collected  shews  that  Pepys,  familiar 
to  the  last  generation  in  the  sphere  of  literature,  was  also  a 
leading  figure  in  an  entirely  different  world,  who  rendered 
inestimable  services  to  naval  administration  in  spite  of  the 
peculiar  difficulties  under  which  he  worked.  These  conclu- 
sions, with  a  part  of  the  evidence  on  which  they  depend,  are 
summarised  in  the  present  volume. 

Thanks  are  due  to  the  Master  and  Fellows  of  Trinity 
College  for  encouraging  the  enterprise;  to  the  Council  of  the 
Navy  Records  Society  for  permission  to  use  the  material 
already  published  in  the  Society's  series;  to  the  Delegates 
of  the  Oxford  Clarendon  Press  for  allowing  the  author  to 
use  and  quote  from  his  Introduction  to  the  reprint  of  Pepys's 
Menioires  of  tJie  Royal  Navy,  1679-88,  issued  in  the  Tudor 
and  Stuart  Library  in  1906;  and  to  Messrs  Sidgwick  and 
Jackson  for  a  similar  permission  to  use  the  Introduction  to 
the  section  on  '  Sea  Manuscripts  '  in  BibliotJicca  Pcpysiana. 

J.  R.  T. 

February^  1920. 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE  PAGE 

I.    INTRODUCTORY i 

II.    ADMINISTRATION i8 

III.    FINANCE 37 

IV.    VICTUALLING;    DISCIPLINE;    SHIPS; 

GUNS 57 

INDEX 80 


LECTURE   I 

INTRODUCTORY 

The  materials  for  the  administrative  history  of  the  Royal 
Navy  from  the  Restoration  to  the  Revolution  are  largely 
contributed  by  Cambridge. 

The  section  of  the  Pepysian  Library  at  Magdalene  which 
Samuel  Pepys  classified  as  'Sea  Manuscripts'  contains  114 
volumes,  the  contents  of  which  cover  a  wide  field  of  naval 
history.  Pepys's  leading  motive  in  collecting  these  is  pro- 
bably to  be  found  in  his  projected  '  History  of  the  Navy.' 
Early  in  his  career  he  thought  of  writing  a  '  History  of  the 
Dutch  War,'  '  it  being  a  thing  I  much  desire,  and  sorts 
mightily  with  my  genius.'^  Later  on  the  design  expanded 
into  a  complete  naval  history,  upon  which,  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  he  was  supposed  to  have  been  engaged  for  many 
years.  Evelyn  writes  in  his  Diary  on  26  May,  1703:  'This 
day  died  Mr  Samuel  Pepys,  a  very  worthy,  industrious,  and 
curious  person,  none  in  England  exceeding  him  in  know- 
ledge of  the  navy.... He  had  for  divers  years  under  his  hand 
the  History  of  the  Navy,  or  Navalia  as  he  called  it ;  but  how 
far  advanced,  and  what  will  follow  of  his,  is  left,  I  suppose, 
to  his  sister's  son.'  Pepys's  correspondence  with  Evelyn  and 
Sir  William  Dugdale  suggests  that  it  would  have  included 
in  its  scope  the  antiquities  of  the  Navy  and  possibly  the 
history  of  navigation,  as  well  as  administrative  history  ;  and 
this  view  is  supported  by  his  selection  of 'sea'  manuscripts 
for  his  Library. 

'   Diary,  13  June,  1664. 


2  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

These  manuscripts  may  be  roughly  classified  in  three 
groups : 

(i)  Official  documents  of  Pepys's  own  time,  the  presence 
of  which  in  the  Library  may  be  explained  by  the  predatory 
habits  of  retiring  officials  in  his  day.  Among  these  are  to 
be  found  collections  of  real  importance  for  the  administrative 
history  of  the  navy  during  his  time,  such  as  (i)  Naval  and 
Admiralty  Precedents  from  1660  to  1688 — described  as  'a 
collection  of  naval  forms  and  other  papers,  serving  for  infor- 
mation and  precedents  in  most  of  the  principal  occasions  of 
the  Admiralty  and  Navy  calling  for  the  same ' ;  (2)  Admir- 
alty Letters,  14  volumes  containing  the  whole  of  the  ordinary 
correspondence  which  passed  out  of  Pepys's  office  during  his 
two  Secretaryships,  1673- 1679  and  1684-1688^ — the  equiva- 
lent of  the  modern  letter-copying  books,  but  in  those  days 
transcribed  afresh  with  laborious  care  by  a  staff  of  clerks ; 
(3)  the  Admiralty  Journal, \hQ  minute-book  of  the  Commis- 
sion of  the  Admiralty  from  1674  to  1679 ;  (4)  Naval  Minutes^ 
a  volume  in  which  Pepys  made  miscellaneous  memoranda, 
many  of  them  notes  for  his  projected  History;  and  (5)  the 
Navy  White  Book,  in  which  he  noted  abuses  in  shorthand, 
and  wrote  down  what  he  called  'matters  for  future  reflection' 
arising  out  of  the  Second  Dutch  War. 

(ii)  A  second  group  of  papers  consists  of  official  and 
unofficial  documents — many  of  them  acquired  or  copied  at 
some  expense — brought  together  deliberately  in  order  to 
serve  as  material  for  the  projected  '  History  of  the  Navy.' 
These  include  (i)  a  copy  of  Sir  William  Monson's  Naval 
Discourses ;  (2)  copious  extracts  from  naval  authorities  and 
historians  carefully  indexed  ;  (3)  Penn's  Naval  Collections, 
being  '  a  collection   of  several  manuscripts,  taken  out  of 

^  Vols,  ii.-v.  of  these  letters  have  been  calendared  already,  and  calendars  of 
vols.  vi.  and  vii.  are  in  preparation  :  see  the  writer's  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS. 
(Navy  Records  Society's  Publications),  vols.  ii.  and  iii. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  3 

Sir  William  Penn's  closet,  relating  to  the  affairs  of  the  Navy ' ; 
(4)  various  volumes  relating  to  shipbuilding  and  navigation, 
including  the  curious  and  valuable  work  entitled  Fragments 
of  Ancient  ShipivrigJitry  and  Sir  Anthony  Deane'sZ^c?^://-/;/^^?/' 
Naval  Architecture.  This  last  contains  delicate  and  elaborate 
drawings  of  a  ship  of  each  rate,  and  Evelyn  records  in  his 
Diary  under  date  28  January,  1682,  the  remarkable  impres- 
sion which  a  sight  of  it  made  upon  him  :  '  Mr  Pepys,  late 
Secretary  to  the  Admiralty,  showed  me  a  large  folio  con- 
taining the  whole  mechanic  part  and  art  of  building  royal 
ships  and  men-of-war,  made  by  Sir  Anthony  Deane,  being 
so  accurate  a  piece  from  the  very  keel  to  the  lead  block, 
rigging,  guns,  victualling,  manning,  and  even  to  every  indi- 
vidual pin  and  nail,  in  a  method  so  astonishing  and  curious, 
with  a  draught,  both  geometrical  and  in  perspective,  and 
several  sections,  that  I  do  not  think  the  world  can  shew  the 
like.  I  esteem  this  book  as  an  extraordinary  jewel.'  There 
also  falls  into  this  group  (5)  the  large  and  important  collec- 
tion in  eleven  volumes  entitled  by  Pepys  A  Miscellany  of 
Matters  Historical,  Political,  and  Naval.  This  contains 
copies  of  1438  documents,  transcribed  from  various  sources, 
and  ranging  from  a  complete  copy  in  114  folio  pages  of 
Sir  Philip  Meadows's  work  on  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Seas 
down  to  '  A  true  Copy  of  the  Great  Turke  his  Stile  which 
he  most  commonly  writeth  in  His  great  Affaires.'  They 
include  documents  relating  to  naval  abuses;  papers  con- 
cerning salutes  and  the  history  of  the  flag,  shipbuilding, 
victualling,  and  finance;  a  number  of  patents,  commissions, 
and  lists  of  ships ;  transcripts  from  the  Black  Book  of  the 
Admiralty ;  and  collections  relating  to  the  Shipwrights' 
Company  and  to  the  Corporation  of  Trinity  House. 

(iii)  The  third  group  consists  of  books  and  papers  which 
specially  appealed  to  Pcpys's  characteristic  curiosity,  and 
have  no  direct  bearing  upon  naval  history.  The  line  between 

I — 2 


4  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

this  and  the  second  group  cannot,  however,  be  sharply  drawn, 
as  few  of  the  '  Sea  Manuscripts '  are  merely  curious,  and 
irrelevant  to  the  history  of  the  navy  as  Pepys  himself  inter- 
preted it.  The  contents  of  this  group  are  not  important  for 
our  present  purpose,  but  one  interesting  fact  may  be  noted. 
The  inclusion  in  the  Miscellanies  of  papers  relating  to 
Sir  William  Petty's  calculations  and  experiments,  and  of  a 
copy  of 'A  Discourse  made  by  Sir  Robert  Southwell  before 
the  Royal  Society,  8  April,  1675,  touching  Water,'  suggests 
that  Pepys's  scientific  interests  were  genuine,  and  were  not 
due,  as  has  been  suggested,  to  a  desire  to  commend  himself 
to  Charles  II. 

It  is  fortunate  for  the  student  of  naval  administration 
during  the  Restoration  period  that  the  *  Sea  Manuscripts ' 
in  the  Pepysian  Library  include  two  'Discourses'^  upon 
naval  abuses  written  at  the  beginning  of  the  period,  which 
enable  us  to  understand  some  of  the  difficulties  with  which 
Pepys  and  his  colleagues  had  to  contend.  The  Second 
Discourse  by  John  Hollond,  in  succession  Paymaster,  Com- 
missioner, and  Surveyor  of  the  Navy  under  the  Common- 
wealth Government,  following  a  First  Discourse  of  1638, 
is  dated  1659  ;  and  the  Discourse  by  Sir  Robert  Slyngesbie, 
a  royalist  naval  commander,  made  Comptroller  of  the  Navy 
on  the  King's  return,  is  dated  1660.  These  give  us  the 
criticisms  of  a  Parliamentarian  of  administrative  experience 
and  those  of  a  royalist  of  experience  at  sea,  made  at  the 
Restoration  and  supplying  an  excellent  groundwork  for  the 
study  of  the  period  which  followed  it. 

There  is  no  time  to  traverse  the  whole  field  of  the  Dis- 
courses, but  certain  points  may  be  considered  by  way  of 
illustration. 

'  See  Hollond's  Discourses  of  the  Navy,  ed.  J.  R.  Tanner,  published  by  the 
Navy  Records  Society  in  1896.  This  volume  also  includes  Slyngesbie's  Dis- 
course of  the  Navy. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  5 

I.  They  brin^^  into  relief  the  remarkable  durability  of 
naval  abuses.  John  Hollond  was  not  the  first  writer  to  de- 
nounce abuses  in  the  navy.  This  had  been  a  fruitful  topic 
for  anonymous  writers  long  before  his  day,  and  if  the  scat- 
tered papers  on  the  subject  were  collected  they  would  con- 
stitute a  complete  literature.  The  charges  begin  at  least  as 
early  as  the  time  of  Hawkyns,  and  one  writer'  accuses  him 
of  what  has  always  been  regarded  as  one  of  the  more  modern 
refinements  of  cheating — the  manufacture  of  a  complete  set 
of  false  books  and  vouchers  for  the  purpose  of  baffling  en- 
quiry. The  Pepysian  Library  contains  copies  of  a  number  of 
exposures  ranging  from  1587  to  161  r.  The  Reports  of  the 
Commissions  of  1608  and  161 8,  and  in  a  lesser  degree  of 
that  of  1626,  are  of  special  importance  in  the  history  of  the 
evolution  of  fraud.  Sir  William  Monson,  who  in  1635 
'  turned  physician  '  and  studied  '  how  to  cure  the  malignant 
diseases  of  corruption  '  that  had  'crept  in  and  infected  his 
Majesty's  whole  navy,'-  assigns  some  passages  in  h\s  Naval 
Tracts  to  naval  abuses;  and  in  1636  the  Earl  of  Northum- 
berland, fresh  from  the  experience  of  a  naval  command, 
denounces  them  in  a  state  paper  to  the  King  in  Councils 
Hollond  only  develops  in  detail  earlier  themes,  and  Pepys, 
who  thought  very  highly  of  his  Discourses,  '  they  hitting  the 
very  diseases  of  the  navy  which  we  are  troubled  with  now- 
a-days,'^  takes  up  the  same  tale.  And  such  is  the  tenacity 
of  life  exhibited  by  a  well-established  naval  abuse,  that  a 
Parliamentary  enquiry  of  1783'*  into  the  Victualling  Depart- 
ment at  Portsmouth  revealed  malpractices  of  a  kind  very 

'  Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  x.  273. 

-  Naval  Tracts  (e<l.  M.  Oppenhcini),  iv.  143. 

'  See  Appendix  to  Hollond's  Discourses,  pp.  361-406. 

*  Diary,  15  July,  1662. 

*  '  Interim  Report  of  a  Committee  to  intjuire  into  abuses  in  the  Victualling 
Dejartment  at  I'crtsmouth  '  (House  of  Commons  Miscellaneous  Reports,  vol. 
xxxvi.  No.  «;■;). 


6  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

similar  to  those  described  by  Hollond.  The  keys  of  the 
victualling  storehouses  had  been  entrusted  to  improper  re- 
cipients, who  had  access  to  the  stores  at  all  hours ;  certain 
persons  kept  hogs  in  the  King's  storehouses,  which  were 
*  fed  with  the  King's  serviceable  biscuit ' ;  planks,  spars, 
staves,  and  barrels  were  converted  to  private  use ;  '  mops  and 
brooms '  from  the  store  were  appropriated  by  an  official  who 
'kept  a  shop  and  dealt  in  those  articles';  the  King's  wine 
was  drawn  off"  in  large  quantities  '  in  bottles  in  a  clandestine 
manner';  certificates  were  granted  for  stores  before  they 
were  actually  received,  and  for  articles  received  short,  these 
being  signed  in  blank  by  the  clerk  of  the  check  beforehand ; 
it  was  a  '  common  practice '  to  send  in  bags  of  bread  de- 
ficient in  weight ;  the  accounts  were  imperfectly  kept,  and 
showed  enormous  deficiencies  of  stores;  by  collusion  with 
the  contractor  stores  were  accepted  that  were  '  of  improper 
quality  and  not  according  to  contract ' ;  and  the  victualling 
board  paid  excessive  prices  to  a  bread  contractor  with 
whom  they  were  in  collusion  and  refused  to  allow  others  to 
tender. 

2.  Let  me  give  you  next  a  few  illustrations  of  the  kind 
of  abuse  which  Hollond  and  his  predecessors  had  pointed 
out,  and  with  which  Pepys  and  his  colleagues  had  to  deal. 

(a)  Hollond,  like  Pepys,  appears  to  have  had  a  genuine 
sympathy  for  the  sorrows  of  the  '  poor  seaman,'  and  he 
complains  bitterly  of  the  long  delays  in  paying  wages  ;  the 
'  intolerable  abuse  to  poor  seamen  in  their  wages '  by  naval 
captains  '  who  are  of  late  turned  merchants,  and  have  and 
do  lay  magazines  of  clothes,... tobacco,  strong  waters,  and 
such  like  commodities  into  their  ships  upon  pretence  of  re- 
lieving poor  seamen  in  their  wants,  but  indeed  for  no  other 
reason  than  their  private  profit'^;  the  practice  of  discharg- 
ing sick  men  without  adequate  funds  to  take  them  home ; 

1  Discourses,  p.  131. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  7 

and  the  payment  of  wages  by  tickets  instead  of  cash,  thus 
creating  a  depreciated  paper  currency. 

{b)  HoUond  also  speaks  strongly  against  the  practice  of 
using  the  State's  labour  in  the  gardens  or  grounds  of  officials, 
and  the  State's  materials  in  repairing  private  houses  or 
sumptuously  decorating  official  residences,  *  by  painting, 
paving,  and  other  ornamental  tricking.''  Here  he  attacks  a 
longstanding  abuse,  for  a  writer  of  1 597  had  already  charged 
the  Comptroller  of  the  Navy  with  employing  five  labourers 
from  the  dockyard  '  by  the  space  of  half  a  year '  at  his  house 
at  Chatham  '  about  the  making  of  a  bowling  alley  and  plant- 
ing of  trees,'-  and  in  1603  Phineas  Pett  was  accused  of 
appropriating  the  King's  timber  'to  make  a  bridge  into  his 
meadow '  and  to  set  up  '  posts  to  hang  clothes  on  in  his 
garden,'  and  also  labour  for  the  same*.  It  is  true  that  Pett's 
accuser  is  not  above  suspicion,  for  he  begins  his  philippic 
with  an  artless  exposition  of  his  motives:  '  In  the  last  year 
of  the  Queen's  reign,  I,  seeing  some  abuses  by  Phineas  Pett, 
told  him  he  had  not  done  his  duty.  He  strook  me  with  his 
cudgel.  I  told  him  he  had  been  better  he  had  held  his  hand, 
for  he  should  pay  for  it.'  Pett  was  in  some  respects  a  calum- 
niated man,  but  this  particular  kind  of  peculation  is  more 
easily  justified  to  the  official  conscience  than  any  other,  and 
there  is  nothing  inherently  improbable  in  the  accusation. 

{c)  The  combination  of  captains  and  pursers  to  return 
false  musters,  or  to  present  men  to  receive  pay  who  never 
served,  was  another  longstanding  abuse.  There  was  in  the 
navy  a  recognised  system  of  drawing  pay  for  non-existent 
persons  to  which  no  discredit  attached,  for  it  was  the  regular 
way  of  giving  the  officers  extra  pay.  Thus  the  captains  were 
allowed  a  'dead  pay'  apiece  on  the  sea-books  'for  their 

'  Discourses,  p.  149. 

■■*  A  Large  and  Sei)ere  Discourse,  &c.  (Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  x.  226). 
'  A  Lari^e  and  Particular  Complaint  against  Phineas  Pett,  <S:c.   (Pepysian 
MS.S.,  Miscellanies,  x.  257). 


8  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

retinues ' ;  and  in  harbour  no  less  than  four  varieties  of  dead 
pay  were  recognised,  including  wages  and  victuals  paid  to 
men  for  keeping  ships  '  which  long  since  had  no  being.'  We 
also  hear  of  an  allowance  demanded  in  the  Narrow  Seas 
'  for  a  preacher  and  his  man,  though  no  such  devotion  be 
ever  used  on  board.'  The  same  principle  appears  in  the 
1 8th  century  in  connexion  with  what  were  known  as  'widows' 
men.'  The  captain  was  authorised  to  enter  one  or  two  fic- 
titious persons  in  every  hundred  men  of  his  ship's  comple- 
ment, and  the  wages  drawn  in  their  names  and  the  value 
of  the  victuals  to  which  they  would  have  been  entitled  were 
applied  to  the  relief  of  the  widows  of  officers  and  seamen 
who  had  served  in  the  navy\  In  the  i6th  and  17th  centuries, 
however,  the  established  principle  was  liable  to  a  variety  of 
fraudulent  applications.  A  paper  of  1603  gives  a  circum- 
stantial account  of  a  case  in  which  the  companies  of  a 
squadron  of  four  ships  were  mustered,  and  it  was  found  that 
of  1250  men  charged  for,  only  958  were  actually  serving, 
the  King  being  '  abused  in  the  pay  of  292  men,  which  for 
four  months,  the  least  time  of  their  employment,'  was  i^Soo^ 
The  Report  of  the  Commission  of  1608  explains  how  this 
could  happen,  for  '  the  captains,  being  for  the  most  part  poor 
gentlemen,  did  mend  their  fortunes  by  combining  with  the 
pursers'*;  and  Hollond,  in  his  First  Discourse,  urges  as  a 
remedy  '  an  increase  of  means  from  the  King '  for  '  all 
subordinate  ministers  acting  in  the  navy,'  since  'for  want 
thereof  they  are  'necessitated  to  one  of  these  two  particu- 
lars, either  to  live  knaves  or  die  beggars — and  sometimes 
to  both.'" 

^  Discourses,  p.  140  «. 

'^  An  Account  of  Particular  Abuses  to  be  proved  against  the  Officers  of  the 
Navy  (Pepysian  MSS. ,  Miscellanies.,  x.  271). 

*  C.  N.  Robinson,  The  British  Fleet,  p.  347.  There  are  two  copies  of  the 
Report  of  1608  in  the  Pepysian  Library — MSS.  2165,  s.nd  Miscellanies,  iii.  355. 

■*  Discourses,  p.  100. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  9 

{d)  The  danger  of  collusion  among  officials  was  one  of 
the  chief  difficulties  in  the  way  of  would-be  reformers,  and 
just  as  collusion  between  the  captains  and  the  pursers  de- 
frauded the  King  in  the  matter  of  pay,  so  collusion  between 
the  victuallers  and  the  pursers  defrauded  the  King  over  the 
provision  of  victuals.  Sir  William  Monson,  in  his  Naval 
Tracts,  gives  instances  of  such  collusion,  and  shews  how 
easily  it  can  be  managed.  Thus  the  victualler  and  the  purser 
would  contract  between  themselves  for  the  purser  to  be 
allowed  to  victual  a  certain  number  of  men  on  board  each 
ship,  paying  the  victualler  for  the  privilege  but  making 
his  own  profit  on  the  victuals  he  supplied.  'Which,'  says 
Monson,  '  besides  that  it  breeds  a  great  inconvenience,  for 
the  purser's  unreasonable  griping  the  sailors  of  their  victuals, 
and  plucking  it,  as  it  were,  out  of  their  bellies,  it  makes 
them  become  weak,  sick,  and  feeble,  and  then  follows  an 
infection  and  inability  to  do  their  labour,  or  else  uproars, 
mutinies,  and  disorders  ensue  among  the  company.'^  Even 
if  the  officers  of  the  ship  did  their  duty,  it  was  sometimes 
the  case  that  the  higher  authorities  ashore  intervened  from 
corrupt  motives.  Monson  tells  us  that  when  Xh^  James  was 
taking  in  victuals  in  Tilbury  Hope,  '  there  appeared  a  certain 
proportion  of  beef  and  pork  able  with  its  scent  to  have 
poisoned  the  whole  company,  but  by  the  carefulness  of  the 
quartermasters  it  was  found  unserviceable.  Yet  after  it  was 
refused  by  the  said  officers  of  the  ship,  and  lay  upon  the 
hatches  unstowed,  some  of  the  Officers  of  the  Navy  repaired 
aboard  and,  by  their  authority  and  great  anger,  forced  it  to 
be  taken  in  for  good  victuals.... My  observation  to  this  point 
is  that,  though  the  Officers  of  the  Navy  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  victualling  part,  yet  it  is  likely  there  is  a  combina- 
tion betwixt  the  one  and  the  other,  like  to  a  mayor  of  a 
corporation,  a  baker,  who  for  that  year  will  favour  the  brewer 

'  Nnval  Tracts,  iv.  147. 


lo  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

that  shall  the  next  year  do  the  like  to  his  trade  when  he 
becomes  mayor.'^  Hollond's  remedy  for  these  abuses  was  to 
abolish  the  victualling  contractor  altogether,  and  for  the 
State  to  take  over  the  victualling  by  means  of  a  victualling 
departments  This  system  of  victualling  '  upon  account,'  as 
it  was  called,  was  actually  adopted  from  1655  to  the  Restor- 
ation, and  again  after  1683;  but  the  difficulties  were  not 
altogether  met  by  the  change,  for  the  officials  who  victualled 
'  upon  account '  were  liable  to  collusion  with  the  vendors  of 
victuals  from  whom  they  bought,  and  in  this  case  the  King's 
service  suffered  in  a  different  way. 

(e)  The  administrative  defects  of  the  victualling  recurred 
on  almost  as  serious  a  scale  in  the  department  of  stores, 
and  great  complaints  are  made,  both  by  John  Hollond 
and  the  earlier  writers,  of  the  bad  quality  of  cordage  and 
timber  and  of  the  frauds  connected  with  their  purveyance. 
Cordage  would  be  entered  by  the  storekeeper  as  heavier  than 
it  weighed  ;  old  cordage  would  be  sold  at  absurdly  low  prices 
to  the  minor  officials  of  the  dockyard  ;  and  materials  still  fit 
for  service  would  be  condemned  as  unserviceable  by  an 
official  who  himself  acted  as  a  contractor  for  purchasing  un- 
serviceable stores^  The  inefficiency  of  the  surveyorsof  timber 
led  them  to  purchase  bad  materials*,  and  their  dishonesty 
provoked  them  to  glut  the  King's  stores  with  defective  timber 
at  exorbitant  prices^  in  order  to  favour  the  monopolist  or 
merchant  with  whom  they  were  in  profitable  collusion. 

The  worst  and  most  corrupt  period  of  naval  administration 
was  the  reign  of  James  I,  and  by  the  Restoration  the  navy 
was  on  a  higher  plane  of  efficiency  and  honesty  ;  but  the 
criticisms  of  such  writers  as  Hollond  and  Slyngesbie  shew 

1  Naval  Tracts,  iv.  143.  "^  Discourses,  p.  154. 

^  Pepysian  MSS. ,  No.  2735,  p.  65. 

*  Hollond,  First  Discourse  {Discourses,  p.  78).  ^  Jh.  p.  67. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  ii 

how  much  remained  for  the  reformer  to  do.  It  is  remarkable 
that  the  period  of  the  later  Stuarts,  so  deeply  sunk  in  political 
corruption,  produced  a  great  naval  organizer  and  reformer  in 
the  person  of  Samuel  Pepys. 

There  are  17  different  ways  of  spelling  the  Diarist's  name, 
but  only  three  of  pronouncing  it.  The  descendants  of  his 
sister  Paulina,  now  represented  by  the  family  of  Pepys 
Cockerell,  pronounce  it  Peeps ;  this  is  also  the  established 
tradition  at  Magdalene,  and  is  probably  the  way  in  which 
Samuel  himself  pronounced  it.  The  branch  of  the  Pepys 
family  which  is  now  represented  by  the  Earl  of  Cottenham, 
pronounce  their  name  Peppis.  The  British  public  calls  it 
Peps,  and  this  is  the  only  pronunciation  in  favour  of  which 
there  is  no  family  or  other  tradition.  An  epigram  contributed 
to  the  GrapJiic  in  November,  1891,  not  only  comes  to  a 
wrong  conclusion  about  the  pronunciation,  but  is  also  full 
of  misleading  statements  about  the  man: 

There  are  people,  I'm  told — some  say  there  are  heaps — 

Who  speak  of  the  talkative  Samuel  as  Peeps  ; 

And  some,  so  precise  and  pedantic  their  step  is,        * 

Who  call  the  delightful  old  Diarist,  Pepys ; 

But  those  I  think  right,  and  I  follow  their  steps. 

Ever  mention  the  garrulous  gossip  as  Peps. 

But  is  he  nothing  more  than  '  the  talkative  Samuel,'  '  the 
delightful  old  Diarist,'  '  the  garrulous  gossip  '?  Even  '  old  '  is 
the  wrong  epithet  unless  it  is  restricted  to  historical  anti- 
quity, for  Pepys  was  not  27  when  he  began  the  Diary^,  and 
only  36  when  the  partial  failure  of  his  eyesight  compelled 
him,  to  his  great  regret,  to  give  it  up,  '  which  is  almost  as 
much  as  to  see  myself  go  into  my  grave.'^  Yet  he  lived  to 
be  70  years  of  age,  and  although  for  part  of  his  career  he 

'  On  I  January,  1660.  ^  Diary,  31  .May,  1669. 


12  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

was  out  of  office,  he  certainly  became,  what  Monck  had 
called  him  earlier  with  exaggerated  compliment,  '  the  right 
hand  of  the  navy.'^  The  maturity  of  his  powers  lies  outside 
the  period  of  the  Diary,  and  it  is  his  later  life  that  makes 
good  his  claim  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  best  public 
officials  who  ever  served  the  State.  In  fact,  Pepys's  Diary  is 
only  a  by-product  of  the  life  of  Samuel  Pepys. 

Nevertheless  the  Diary,  in  spite  of  its  infinite  accumula- 
tions of  unimportant  detail,  and  its  conscientious  record  of 
small  vices,  shews  us  the  great  official  in  the  making.  Let 
me  give  two  illustrations,  one  on  the  lower  levels  of  the 
Diary  and  the  other  where  it  reaches  its  highest  plane, 

30  May,  1660:  'All  this  morning  making  up  my  accounts, 
in  which  I  counted  that  I  had  made  myself  now  worth  about 
;^8o,  at  which  my  heart  was  glad  and  blessed  God.'  3  June, 
1660:  'At  sermon  in  the  morning;  after  dinner  into  my 
cabin  to  cast  my  accounts  up,  and  find  myself  to  be  worth 
near  i^ioo,  for  which  I  bless  Almighty  God,  it  being  more 
than  I  hoped  for  so  soon.'  5  September,  1660:  'In  the 
evening,  my  wife  being  a  little  impatient,  I  went  along  with 
her  to  buy  her  a  necklace  of  pearl,  which  will  cost  £dt.  los,, 
which  I  am  willing  to  comply  with  her  in  for  her  encourage- 
ment, and  because  I  have  lately  got  money,  having  now 
above  ;^200  cash  beforehand  in  the  world.  Home,  and  having 
in  our  way  bought  a  rabbit  and  two  little  lobsters,  my  wife 
and  I  did  sup  late,  and  so  to  bed.'  This  methodical  care  in 
calculating  ways  and  means  and  recording  expenditure, 
when  applied  to  the  greater  afifairs  of  the  navy,  appears  as 
a  habit  of  method  and  order,  and  a  remarkable  instinct  for 
business.  Pepys  introduced  into  a  slipshod  and  rather 
chaotic  organisation  a  high  degree  of  system  and  method, 
and  so  vastly  increased  its  efficiency  in  every  direction. 

^  Diary,  24  April,  1665. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  13 

My  other  illustration  is  from  the  account  given  in  the 
Diary  of  the  funeral  of  Sir  Christopher  Myngs,  who  had 
been  mortally  wounded  in  action  on  the  last  day  of  the  great 
battle  with  the  Dutch  off  the  North  Foreland,  June  1-4, 
1666.  Pepys  was  present  at  the  funeral  in  a  coach  with 
Sir  William  Coventry,  at  which,  he  tells  us\  *  there  happened 
this  extraordinary  case — one  of  the  most  romantique  that 
ever  I  heard  of  in  my  life,  and  could  not  have  believed  but 
that  I  did  see  it ;  which  was  this : — About  a  dozen  able, 
lusty,  proper  men  come  to  the  coach-side  with  tears  in 
their  eyes,  and  one  of  them  that  spoke  for  the  rest  begun 
and  says  to  Sir  VV.  Coventry,  "  We  are  here  a  dozen  of  us 
that  have  long  known  and  loved  and  served  our  dead 
commander.  Sir  Christopher  Mings,  and  have  now  done 
the  last  office  of  laying  him  in  the  ground.  We  would  be 
glad  we  had  any  other  to  offer  after  him,  and  in  revenge 
of  him.  All  we  have  is  our  lives;  if  you  will  please  to 
get  his  Royal  Highness  to  give  us  a  fireship  among  us 
all,  here  is  a  dozen  of  us,  out  of  all  which  choose  you  one 
to  be  commander,  and  the  rest  of  us,  whoever  he  is,  will 
serve  him ;  and,  if  possible,  do  that  that  shall  show  our 
memory  of  our  dead  commander,  and  our  revenge."  Sir  W. 
Coventry  was  herewith  much  moved  (as  well  as  I,  who  could 
hardly  abstain  from  weeping),  and  took  their  names,  and  so 
parted;  telling  me  he  would  move  his  Royal  Highness  as 
in  a  thing  very  extraordinary,  which  was  done.'  No  more 
touching  tribute  than  this  has  ever  been  paid  to  the  memory 
of  a  great  seaman,  nor  better  evidence  given  of  the  simple 
loyalty  of  sea-faring  men  which  in  their  descendants  has 
served  us  so  well  of  late.  '  The  truth  is,'  continues  Pepys, 
'  Sir  Christopher  Mings  was  a  very  stout  man,  and  a  man 
of  great  parts,  and  most  excellent  tongue  among  ordinary 

'  Diary,  13  June,  1666. 


14  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

men.. .  .He  had  brought  his  family  into  a  way  of  being  great ; 
but  dying  at  this  time,  his  memory  and  name... will  be  quite 
forgot  in  a  few  months  as  if  he  had  never  been,  nor  any  of 
his  name  be  the  better  by  it;  he  having  not  had  time  to  will 
any  estate,  but  is  dead  poor  rather  than  rich.'  A  writer  who 
could  describe  such  a  scene  in  a  style  which  conies  so  near 
distinction,  and  could  then  reflect  with  dignity  upon  the 
swift  passing  of  human  greatness,  is  something  more  than 
a  '  delightful  old  Diarist '  or  a  '  garrulous  gossip ' ;  but  it  is 
characteristic  of  Pepys  that  he  should  thus  conclude  his 
entry  for  the  day:  '  In  my  way  home  I  called  on  a  fisherman 
and  bought  three  eeles,  which  cost  me  three  shillings.' 

I  have  quoted  this  passage  about  the  funeral  of  Sir  Christo- 
pher Myngs  for  another  reason — it  enables  us  to  understand 
how  Pepys  developed  later  on  so  impressive  an  official  style. 
He  takes  pleasure  in  long,  labyrinthine  sentences,  in  which 
the  thread  of  thought  winds  deviously  through  an  infinity  of 
dependent  clauses,but  the  thread  is  never  lost.and  the  reader 
always  arrives  in  the  end  at  the  destined  goal.  He  has  a  dis- 
criminating taste  in  the  selection  of  words,  always  choosing 
the  more  impressive,  and  leaving  the  reader  with  the  sense 
of  something  dignified  moving  before  him,  like  a  procession, 
but  never  sacrificing  clearness  and  precision  to  mere  sound. 
Yet  associated  with  all  this  pomp  is  a  sense  of  humour, 
usually  full-flavoured,  but  on  occasion  as  subtle  and  dehcate 
as  need  be\  and  finding  its  way  even  into  the  more  dismal 
kinds  of  official  correspondence. 

To  illustrate  the  point  of  complexity,  let  me  read  you  a 
letter  to  the  Navy  Board  of  2  June,  1677,  which  I  came 


1  See  for  instance  a  letter  of  17  December,  1678,  courteously  discouraging  a 
commander  from  sending  his  chaplain's  sermon  to  the  Bishop  of  London  for 
his  perusal,  as  owing  to  the  pressing  nature  of  his  Parliamentary  engagements 
the  Bishop  might  not  be  'at  leisure  to  overlook  it '  (Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty 
Letters,  viii.  432). 


AND  THE  ROVAL  NAVY  15 

across  not  long  ago  among  the  Pepysian  papers\  It  consists 
of  a  single  colossal  sentence,  yet  the  meaning  is  perfectly 
clear.  If  you  want  a  parallel,  you  should  go  to  the  Prayer 
Book,  to  the  Exhortation  which  precedes  the  General  Con- 
fession ;  for  this,  although  punctuated  as  three  sentences,  is 
structurally  onl\-  one. 

There  being  a  prospect  (as  you  will  know)  of  a  considerable  number 
of  great  ships  to  be  built,  and  many  applications  being  already,  and 
more  likely  to  be  yet  made  to  his  Majesty  and  my  Lords  of  the  Admir- 
alty for  employments  by  persons  so  far  from  having  merited  the  same 
by  any  past  service  as  to  be  wholly  strangers  to  the  business  thereof, 
or  at  least  have  their  qualifications  for  the  same  wholly  unknown,  nor 
have  any  title  to  his  Majesty's  favour  therein  more  than  their  interest 
(which  possibly  they  have  bought  too)  in  the  persons  they  solicit  by, 
And  knowing  that  it  is  his  Majesty'^s  royal  intentions,  as  well  as  for  the 
benefit  of  his  service,  that  the  employments  arising  upon  his  ships  be 
disposed  to  such  as  by  their  long  and  faithful  services  and  experiences 
are  best  fitted  for  and  deserve  the  same,  I  make  it  my  desire  to  you 
that  you  will  at  your  first  convenience  cause  the  list  of  the  present 
standing  officers  of  his  Majesty's  fleet,  namely,  pursers,  boatswains,  and 
carpenters,  to  be  overlooked,  and  a  collection  thence  made  of  such  as 
by  length  of  ser\ice,  frequency  and  strictness  of  passing  their  accounts, 
together  with  their  diligence  and  sobriety,  you  shall  find  most  deserving 
to  be  advanced  from  lesser  ships  to  bigger,  transmitting  the  same  to 
me  in  order  to  my  laying  it  (as  there  shall  be  occasion)  before  his 
Majesty  for  the  benefit  of  the  persons  you  shall  therein  do  right  to  and 
encouragement  of  others  to  imitate  them  in  deserving  well  in  his  service, 
Towards  the  obtaining  of  which  I  shall  by  the  grace  of  God  endeavour 
constantly  to  do  my  part,  as  I  doubt  not  you  will  also  do  yours,  putting 
in  execution  the  Lord  Admiral's  instructions  for  informing  yourselves 
well  in  the  good  and  bad  behaviour  of  these  officers,  and  particularly 
by  your  enquiries  after  the  same  at  pays,  when  by  the  presence  of  the 
ship's  companies  the  same  will  most  probably  be  understood. 

The  reputation  of  Samuel  Pepys  has  suffered  in  two  ways. 
Readers  of  the  Diary  under-estimatc  him  because  they  con- 

'   I'ei)ysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  vi.  43. 


i6  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

ceive  of  him  as  a  diarist  only,  and  do  not  realize  the  serious- 
ness of  his  public  responsibilities  or  the  greatness  of  his 
official  career.  On  the  other  hand,  naval  historians  have 
often  under-estimated  him  because  they  have  failed  to  appre- 
ciate the  difficulties  with  which  he  had  to  contend.  If  these 
difficulties  are  allowed  for,  the  services  rendered  by  Samuel 
Pepys  to  the  navy  are  incomparable.  He  stood  for  a  vigorous 
shipbuilding  policy,  for  methodical  organisation  in  every 
department,  and  for  the  restoration  of  a  lost  naval  discipline. 
This  was  recognised  by  his  immediate  posterity,  and  in  the 
century  after  his  death  a  great  tradition  grew  up  about  his 
name.  A  commission  which  reported  in  1805  spoke  of  him 
as  '  a  man  of  extraordinary  knowledge  in  all  that  related  to 
the  business '  of  the  navy,  '  of  great  talents,  and  the  most 
indefatigable  industry.'  The  respect  paid  to  his  authority 
by  the  generation  of  naval  administrators  which  succeeded 
his  own — comparable  only  perhaps  to  the  weight  which 
Lord  Chief  Justice  Coke  had  carried  among  the  lawyers  of 
an  earlier  time — led  to  a  number  of  transcripts  being  made 
from  the  Pepysian  manuscripts  and  preserved  in  the  Ad- 
miralty Library  for  the  guidance  of  his  successors.  And  this 
tradition  has  to  be  reconciled  with  the  other  and  widely 
different  tradition  associated  with  the  Pepys  of  the  Diary. 
It  is  not  easy  to  realise  that  the  two  traditions  belong  to 
the  same  person.  It  is  extraordinary  that  a  man  should 
have  written  the  Diary,  but  it  is  much  more  extraordinary 
that  the  man  who  wrote  the  Diary  should  also  have  been 
'  the  right  hand  of  the  navy.'  From  the  Diary  we  learn  that 
Pepys  was  a  musician,  a  dandy,  a  collector  of  books  and 
prints,  an  observer  of  boundless  curiosity,  and,  as  a  critic 
has  pointed  out,  one  who  possessed  an  '  amazing  zest  for 
life.'  From  the  Pepysian  manuscripts  we  learn  that  he  was 
a  man  of  sound  judgment,  of  orderly  and  methodical  busi- 
ness habits,  of  great  administrative  capacity  and  energy; 


AND  THE  ROVAL  NAVY  17 

and  that  he  possessed  extraordinary  shrewdness  and  tact  in 
deaHng  with  men.  At  certain  points  in  the  Diary  we  can 
see  the  great  official  maturing,  but  in  the  main  the  intimate 
self-revelation  of  a  human  being  seems  far  removed  from 
official  life.  It  is  the  combination  of  qualities  that  is  so 
astounding,  and  those  who  regard  Pepys  only  as  '  the  most 
amusing  and  capable  of  our  seventeenth  century  diarists  '^ — 
a  mere  literary  performer  making  sport  for  us — do  little 
justice  to  a  great  career. 

*  Historical  MSS.  Commission,  Fifteenth  Report,  Appendix,  pt.  ii.  p.  153. 


T. 


LECTURE   II 
ADMINISTRATION 

The  history  of  naval  administration  between  the  Restora- 
tion and  the  Revolution  falls  naturally  into  four  periods : 
(i)  1660-73,  from  the  appointment  of  the  Duke  of  York  to 
be  Lord  High  Admiral,  until  his  retirement  after  the  passing 
of  the  Test  Act;  (2)  1673-79,  the  first  Secretaryship  of 
Samuel  Pepys;  (3)  1679-84,  the  period  of  administrative 
disorder  which  followed  his  resignation;  and  (4)  1684-88, 
from  the  return  of  the  Duke  of  York  to  office  until  the 
Revolution — this  period  being  also  that  of  Pepys's  second 
Secretaryship. 

At  the  date  of  the  King's  Restoration  the  direction  of 
the  navy  was  in  the  hands  of  an  Admiralty  Commission  of 
twenty-eight,  appointed  by  the  restored  Rump  Parliament 
in  December,  1659^  with  a  Navy  Board  of  seven  experts 
under  it.  One  of  the  earlier  acts  of  Charles  1 1  on  his  return 
was  to  dissolve  these  two  bodies,  and  to  revive  the  ancient 
form  of  navy  government  by  a  Lord  High  Admiral  and 
four  Principal  Officers — the  Treasurer,  the  Comptroller,  the 
Surveyor,  and  the  Clerk  of  the  Acts.  James,  Duke  of  York, 
the  King's  brother,  afterwards  James  II,  was  made  Lord 
High  Admiral — an  appointment  which  realised  the  ideas  of 
Monson,  who  had  written  earlier:  '  The  way  to  settle  things  is 
to  appoint  an  Admiral,  young,  heroical,  and  of  a  great  blood. 
His  experience  in  sea  affairs  is  not  so  much  to  be  required 
at  first  as  his  sincerity,  honour,  and  wisdom ;  for  his  daily 
practice  in  his  Office,  with  conference  of  able  and  experienced 

^  A  list  of  Lord  High  Admirals  and  Admiralty  Commissions  from  August, 
1628,  to  March,  1689,  is  given  in  Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  xi.  211-26. 


SAMUEL  PEPYS  AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  19 

men,  will  quickly  instruct  him.'>  All  the  Stuarts  were  in- 
terested in  the  sea.  Nothing  gave  Charles  II  more  pleasure 
than  to  sail  down  the  Thames  in  one  of  his  yachts  to  inspect 
his  ships,  and  his  brother  possessed  something  like  an  ex- 
pert knowledge  of  naval  affairs.  Even  Macaulay,  who  has 
scarcely  a  good  word  to  say  for  him,  allows  that  he  would 
have  made  'a  respectable  clerk  in  the  dockyard  at  Chatham."'^ 
He  was  an  authority  on  shipbuilding  questions'',  and  Pepys, 
in  a  private  minute  not  intended  for  publication  and  there- 
fore likely  to  express  his  real  mind,  ascribes  much  of  the 
strength  of  the  navy  in  his  day  to  the  Duke's  energy  in 
'  getting  ships  to  be  begun  to  be  built,  in  confidence  that 
when  they  were  begun  they  would  not  let  them  want  finish- 
ing, who  otherwise  would  never  of  themselves  have  spared 
money  from  lesser  uses  to  begin  to  build.'''  He  was  also  by 
temperament  stiff  in  discipline,  and  threw  his  influence 
strongly  on  the  side  of  reform.  The  numerous  references  to 
him  in  the  State  Papers  shew  that  while  he  was  Lord  High 
Admiral  he  bestowed  a  great  deal  of  attention  upon  the 
duties  of  the  office'. 

The  new  Treasurer  of  the  Navy  was  Sir  George  Carteret, 
who,  entering  the  service  as  a  boy,  had  risen  to  high  com- 
mand in  the  navy,  and  had  served  as  Comptroller  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  I.    '  Besides  his  other  parts  of  honesty  and 

'  Naval  Trails,  iv.  141. 

-  History  0/ England  {z  vols.  Longman,  1880),  i.  218. 

'  Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  xii.  71.  We  also  find  him  desiring  '  for 
his  own  satisfaction  and  use  to  have  an  account  of  the  just  rake  of  all  the  up- 
right-stemmed ships  in  his  royal  navy,  and  the  present  seat  of  the  step  of  each 
main-mast'  (ib.  xi.  200);  and  his  pocket-book  in  the  Pepysian  Library  (MSS. 
No.  488)  contains  a  number  of  facts  about  the  navy.  For  his  interest  in  inven- 
tions see  Admiralty  Letters,  xii.  91  and  xiii.  23. 

*■  Pepysian  MSS.  No.  2866,  Naval  Minutes,  p.  175. 

»  Calendar  0/ State  Papers,  Domestic,  1667-8,  p.  xxxvi ;  cf.  also  Diary,  8  July, 
1668  ('  I  to  the  Duke  of  York  to  attend  him  about  the  business  of  the  Office; 
and  find  him  mighty  free  to  me,  and  iiow  he  is  concerned  to  mend  things  in  the 
Navy  himself,  and  not  leave  it  to  other  people '). 

2 — 2 


20  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

discretion,'  says  Clarendon,  he  was  '  undoubtedly  as  good,  if 
not  the  best,  seaman  in  England,'^  and  Sir  William  Coventry, 
his  consistent  opponent,  described  him  to  Pepys  as  '  a  man 
that  do  take  the  most  pains,  and  gives  himself  the  most  to 
do  business  of  any  about  the  Court,  without  any  desire  of 
pleasure  or  divertisements.'^  Pepys  himself  wrote  of  him 
not  long  before  his  fall :  '  I  do  take '  him  '  for  a  most  honest 
man.'^ 

Sir  Robert  Slyngesbie,  the  new  Comptroller,  was  himself 
the  son  of  a  Comptroller  of  the  Navy,  and  had  served  as  a 
sea-captain  as  early  as  1633*,  having  been  '  from  his  infancy 
bred  up  and  employed  in  the  navy.'^ 

Sir  William  Batten,  the  Surveyor,  was  only  returning  to 
an  office  which  he  had  already  held,  for  he  had  been  Sur- 
veyor of  the  Navy  from  1638  to  1642,  and  afterwards  an 
active  naval  commander.  Pepys  began  by  borrowing  ;^40  of 
him^  and  then  came  to  dislike  him.  Their  relations  were 
not  improved  by  the  small  social  jealousies  which  broke  out 
between  their  wives.  Lady  Batten  complained  to  Pepys 
that  *  there  was  not  the  neighbourliness  between  her '  and 
Mrs  Pepys  '  that  was  fit  to  be ';  that  Mrs  Pepys  spoke  '  un- 
handsomely of  her,'  and  her  maid  '  mocked  her '  over  the 
garden  walP.  Soon  after,  Pepys  records  with  some  satisfac- 
tion that  he  and  his  wife  managed  to  take  precedence  of 
Lady  Batten  in  going  out  of  church,  '  which  I  believe  will 
vex  her.'*  What  the  Diary  calls  a  'fray'  eventually  took 
place  between  the  two  ladies,  and  Lady  Batten  was  '  mighty 
high  upon  it,'  telling  Mrs  Pepys's  '  boy '  that  '  she  would 
teach  his  mistress  better  manners,  which  my  wife  answered 

^  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  ix.  208. 

^  Diary,  30  October,  1662.  ^  lb.  12  April,  1667. 

*  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1631-3,  p.  546. 
^  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  11,  i.  153. 

*  Diary,  31  July,  i66i. 

^  lb.  5  November,  1662.  ^  lb.  28  December,  1662. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  21 

aloud  that  she  might  hear,  that  she  could  learn  little  man- 
ners of  her."'  Pepys  came  to  the  conclusion  that  his  wife 
was  to  blame-.  Sir  William  Batten,  who  does  not  deserve 
the  treatment  he  meets  with  in  the  Diary,  had  at  first 
done  what  he  could  to  accommodate  the  quarrel,  saying  to 
Pepys  that  '  he  desired  the  difference  between  our  wives 
might  not  make  a  difference  between  us,'*  but  quarrels  of 
this  kind  are  the  hardest  of  all  to  compose,  and  it  is  not  to 
the  Diary  that  Batten's  biographer  goes  for  his  facts.  Pepys 
calls  him  a  knave*  and  a  sot',  and  accuses  him  of  '  corruption 
and  underhand  dealing'*;  and  in  reviewing  his  own  position 
on  the  last  day  of  the  year  1663,  he  writes:  '  At  the  Office 
I  am  well,  though  envied  to  the  devil  by  Sir  William  Batten, 
who  hates  me  to  death,  but  cannot  hurt  me.  The  rest  either 
love  me,  or  at  least  do  not  shew  otherwise....'  The  news  of 
Batten's  last  illness  was,  however,  received  with  some  sign 
of  relenting.  '  Word  is  brought  me  that  he  is  so  ill  that  it  is 
believed  he  cannot  live  till  to-morrow,  which  troubles  me 
and  my  wife  mightily,  partly  out  of  kindness,  he  being 
a  good  neighbour — and  partly  because  of  the  money  he 
owes  me  upon  our  bargain  of  the  late  prize.'^ 

The  only  one  of  the  Principal  Officers  who  knew  nothing 
about  the  navy  was  the  Clerk  of  the  Acts,  Samuel  Pepys 
himself  He  obtained  the  office  by  the  influence  of  his 
patron,  Edward  Mountagu,  the  first  Earl  of  Sandwich,  a 
distinguished  naval  commander,  who  was  first  cousin  to 
Pepys's  father  and  recognised  the  claims  of  kinship  after  the 
fashion  of  his  day.  It  was  necessary  first  to  buy  out  Thomas 
Barlow,  who  had  been  Clerk  of  the  Acts  under  Charles  I,  and 
Pepys,  observing  that  he  was  '  an  old,  consumptive  man,'* 

>  Diary,  10  .March,  1663.  ^  lb.  i\  March,  1663. 

»  /b.  15  July,  1662.  *  lb.  5  July,  1664. 

*  lb.  21  May,  1664.  "  lb.  13  June,  1663. 

'  lb.  4  October,  1667.  ^  /b.  ij  July,  1660. 


22  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

offered  him  ^loo  a  year.  He  lived  until  1665,  and  then  a 
characteristic  entry  appears  in  the  Diary.  '  At  noon  home 
to  dinner,  and  then  to  my  office  again,  where  Sir  William 
Petty  comes  among  other  things  to  tell  me  that  Mr  Barlow 
is  dead;  for  which,  God  knows  my  heart,  I  could  be  as  sorry 
as  is  possible  for  one  to  be  for  a  stranger  by  whose  death 
he  gets  ;^ioo  per  annum,  he  being  a  worthy,  honest  man; 
but  after  having  considered  that,  when  I  come  to  consider 
the  providence  of  God  by  this  means  unexpectedly  to  give 
me  ;^ioo  a  year  more  in  my  estate,  I  have  cause  to  bless 
God,  and  do  it  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart' ^ 

Besides  the  four  Principal  Officers,  the  new  Navy  Board 
also  included  three  extra  Commissioners  of  the  Navy,  Lord 
Berkeley,  Sir  William  Penn,  and  Peter  Pett.  Lord  Berkeley 
was  a  distinguished  soldier,  who  had  won  great  honour  at 
Stratton,  and  had  served  under  Turenne  from  1652  to  1655^ 
Sir  William  Penn  was  the  son  of  a  seaman  and  had  been  a 
seaman  all  his  life.  He  had  been  rear-admiral  and  then 
vice-admiral  in  the  time  of  the  Long  Parliament;  he  had 
served  as  vice-admiral  under  Blake,  had  commanded  the 
expedition  which  seized  Jamaica^  and  had  been  a  member 
of  two  Admiralty  Commissions  during  the  Interregnum*. 
Peter  Pett  came  of  a  famous  family  of  shipbuilders® — an 
earlier  Pett  had  been  master  shipwright  at  Deptford  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  VP — and  he  had  already  served  as  resident 
Commissioner  at  Chatham  for  thirteen  years'".  Pett  occupied 
a  somewhat  inferior  position  to  his  colleagues,  as  he  was 
required  still  to  reside  at  Chatham  to  take  charge  of  the 
dockyard  there — at  this  time  the  most  important  of  the  royal 

^  Diary,  9  February,  1665. 

^  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  iv.  361-2.  ^  lb.  xliv.  308-9. 

•*  The  Commissions  of  1653  and  1659  (Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  xi.  216, 
218,  219). 

'  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  xlv.  103.  *  lb.  xlv.  102. 

'  H.  B.  Wheatley,  Samuel  Pepys  and  the  World  he  lived  in,  p.  285. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  23 

yards,  described  in  the  Admiralty  Letters  as  '  the  master- 
yard  of  all  the  rest.''  The  other  two  Commissioners  had  no 
special  duties  assigned  to  them,  and  this  was  regarded  as 
one  of  the  advantages  of  the  system  now  established,  since 
they  were  '  not  limited  to  any,  and  yet  furnished  with  powers 
of  acting  and  controlling  every  part,  both  of  the  particular 
and  common  duties  of  the  Office'...' understanding  the 
defects  of  the  whole,  and  applying  their  assistance  where  it 
may  be  most  useful. '- 

It  will  be  observed  that  on  the  Navy  Board  of  the 
Restoration  expert  experience  was  overwhelmingly  repre- 
sented. Of  its  seven  members  four  were  seamen;  one  a 
soldier — and  it  must  be  remembered  that  at  this  time  the 
line  between  the  two  services  was  not  distinctly  drawn,  for 
Blake  had  been  a  lieutenant-colonel  and  Monck  commander- 
in-chief  of  an  army  before  they  were  appointed  to  command 
fleets  as  '  generals-at-sea ' ;  one  represented  experience  of 
shipbuilding  and  dockyard  administration  ;  and  only  the 
Clerk  of  the  Acts  knew  nothing  about  the  sea.  Sir  Walter 
Ralegh  had  remarked  in  his  day:  'It  were  to  be  wished 
that  the  chief  officers  under  the  Lord  Admiral... should  be 
men  of  the  best  experience  in  sea-service,'  and  had  com- 
plained that  sometimes  '  by  the  special  favour  of  princes  ' 
or  'the  mediation  of  great  men  for  the  preferment  of  their 
servants,'  or  '  now  and  then  by  virtue  of  the  purse,'  persons 
'  very  raw  and  ignorant '  are  '  very  unworthily  and  unfitly 
nominated  to  those  places.'^  But  such  criticisms  applied  no 
longer.  The  King  had  made  a  good  choice  of  fit  persons 
duly  qualified,  and  had  established  a  naval  administration 
which,  if  it  failed,  would  not  fail  for  lack  of  knowledge. 


'  X.  358. 

'  Report  of  the  Navy  Conuuissioners  to  the  Duke  of  York,  17  April,  i66g  ; 
printed  in  Ch.irnock,  Marine  Architecture,  ii.  406. 

»  Observations  on  the  Naiy  and  Sea  Service  (  Works,  viii.  336). 


24  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

There  were  a  good  many  subsequent  changes,  but  the 
importance  of  administration  by  experts  was  not  again  lost 
sight  of.  The  office  of  Treasurer  of  the  Navy  soon  fell  to 
the  men  of  accounts,  and  in  1667  Sir  George  Carteret  was 
succeeded  by  the  Earl  of  Anglesey,  a  '  laborious,  skilful, 
cautious,  moderate '  official,  who  had  had  seven  years'  ex- 
perience of  finance  as  Vice-Treasurer  and  Receiver-General 
for  Ireland^  But  with  this  exception,  if  the  post  of  a  Prin- 
cipal Officer  was  vacated  by  a  naval  expert  it  was  offered 
to  a  naval  expert  again.  When  Sir  Robert  Slyngesbie,  the 
Comptroller,  died  in  i66i^  he  was  succeeded  by  Sir  John 
Mennes,  who  had  served  under  Sir  William  Monson  in  the 
Narrow  Seas,  and  had  had  a  wide  experience  of  the  navy^ 
This  appointment  was  not  as  successful  as  might  have  been 
expected.  Pepys  thought  him  '  most  excellent  pleasant  com- 
pany'^  and  'a  very  good,  harmless,  honest  gentleman,'^  but 
he  is  always  attacking  his  incapacity**,  and  refers  to  him  on 
one  occasion  as  a  'doating  fool.'^  On  his  death  in  1671  the 
office  passed  to  Sir  Thomas  Allin,  originally  a  shipowner  at 
Lowestoft,  who  had  served  under  Prince  Rupert,  and  had 
acquired  a  reputation  in  the  Second  Dutch  War^  When 
Sir  William  Batten,  the  Surveyor,  died  in  1667,  he  was  suc- 
ceeded byColonel  Thomas  Middleton.who  had  been  resident 
Commissioner  at  Portsmouth®;  and  when  in  1672  Middleton 

^  Dictionary  of  National  Biography ,  ii.  2-3. 

^  '  So  home  again,  and  in  the  evening  news  was  brought  that  Sir  R.  Slingsby, 
our  Comptroller,  (who  hath  this  day  been  sick  a  week)  is  dead ;  which  put  me 
into  so  great  trouble  of  mind  that  all  the  night  I  could  not  sleep,  he  being  a 
man  that  loved  me,  and  had  many  qualities  that  made  me  love  him  above  all 
the  Officers  and  Commissioners  in  the  Navy'  {Diary,  26  October,  1661). 

*  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  xxxvii.  253-4. 

^  Diajy,  2  January,  1666.  ^  lb.  20  August,  1666. 

*  lb.  7  April,  1663;  5  October,  1663;  ^  October,  1666;  4  January,  1669. 
^  lb.  2  April,  1664. 

*  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  i.  332. 

^  Pepys  joined  with  Penn  in  recommending  him  as  '  a  most  honest  and  un- 
derstanding man,  and  fit  for  that  place '  {Diary,  5  October,  1667). 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  25 

was  transferred  to  Chatham,  John  Tippetts,  who  had  fol- 
lowed him  at  Portsmouth,  was  appointed  to  the  Surveyor- 
ship'.  It  should  be  noticed  that  whereas  during  the  thirteen 
years  of  naval  history  from  1660  to  1673  ^^^  office  of  Trea- 
surer of  the  Navy  was  held  by  four  different  persons,  and  the 
offices  of  Comptroller  and  Surveyor  each  by  three,  there  was 
no  change  in  the  office  of  Clerk  of  the  Acts.  Pepys  was 
the  only  one  of  the  Principal  Officers  whose  experience 
was  continuous. 

The  extra  Commissionerships,  when  vacancies  arose,  did 
not  all  go  to  naval  experts,  but  men  of  ability  were  selected 
for  them,  and  sometimes  men  of  distinction.  When  in  1662 
another  extra  Commissioner  was  appointed,  the  choice  fell 
on  William  Coventry,  a  civilian;  but  Coventr)'  had  already 
had  two  years'  experience  of  naval  administration  as  Secre- 
tary to  the  Lord  High  Admiral,  and  his  ability  soon  made 
him  one  of  the  most  valuable  members  of  the  Navy  Board. 
Burnet  described  him  in  1665  as  'a  man  of  great  actions 
and  eminent  virtues  ' ;  Temple  credits  him  with  high  political 
capacity;  Evelyn  calls  him  'a  wise  and  witty  gentleman  '-; 
and  the  Diary  shews  how  warmly  Pepys  was  attached  to 
him^  In  1664  an  extra  Commissionership  was  conferred 
on  Lord  Brouncker,  a  literary  man,  an  intimate  friend  of 
Evelyn's,  and  the  first  President  of  the  Royal  Society,  who 
took  something  more  than  an  amateur's  interest  in  shipbuild- 
ing, and  in  1662  had  built  a  yacht  for  the  King^  Pepys  could 
not  make  up  his  mind  about  him;  for  in  1667  he  speaks  of 
him  as  '  a  rotten-hearted,  false  man  as  any  else  I  know,  even 
as  Sir  W.  Penn  himself,  and  therefore  I  must  beware  of  him 

'   Calendar  of  Slate  Papers,  Domeslic,  1672,  p.  551. 
'■'  Dictionary  0/ National  Biography,  xii.  },(•>},. 

•  E.g.  14  September,  1662  ('found  him  to  admiration  good  and  industrious, 
and  I  think  my  most  true  friend  in  all  thinjjs  that  arc  fair  ') ;  18  Novemher,  1662 
('  I  am  still  in  love  more  and  more  with  him  for  his  real  worth  ') ;  and  elsewhere. 

*  Dictionary  0/ National  Biography,  vi.  470. 


26  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

accordingly,  and  I  hope  I  shall/^  and  in  1668  he  regards 
him  as  the  best  man  in  the  Navy  Office^.  One  of  the  extra 
Commissioners,  Sir  Edward  Seymour,  was  also  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Commons. 

The  Navy  Board  was  by  tradition  the  Lord  High  Ad- 
miral's council  of  advice  for  that  part  of  his  office  which 
was  concerned  with  the  government  of  the  navy,  and  Monson 
alludes  to  its  members  as  '  the  conduit  pipes  to  whom  the 
Lord  Admiral  properly  directs  all  his  commands  for  his 
Majesty's  service,  and  from  whom  it  descends  to  all  other 
inferior  officers  and  ministers  under  them  whatsoever.'^    In 
practice  the  Board  enjoyed  very  large  administrative  powers, 
for  it  was  authorised  '  to  cause  all  ordinary  businesses  to  be 
done  according  to  the  ancient  and  allowed  practice  of  the 
Office,  and  extraordinary  according  to  the  warrants  and 
directions  from  the  Lord  Admiral  and  the  State'*;  but  in 
theory  it  existed  only  in  order  to  carry  out  the  general  in- 
structions which  the  Duke  of  York  had  issued  early  in  1662^, 
not  long  after  he  had  taken  office.    These  were  drawn  in 
comprehensive  terms,  and  of  necessity  left  a  vast  number  of 
decisions  on  particular  questions  to  be  taken  by  the  Board. 
These  instructions  of  1662    remained    in    force  until  the 
Admiralty  was  reorganised  at  the  beginning  of  the   19th 
century\ 

It  is  evident  that  the  administration  of  the  navy  after  the 
Restoration  was  in  the  hands  of  able  and  experienced  men, 

^  Diary.,  29  January,  1667.  ^  lb.  25  August,  1668. 

^  Naval  Tracts,  iii.  398. 

*  Pepysian  MSS.  No.  261 1,  Sir  William  Penn's  Collections,  p.  4. 

^  These  were  founded  upon  earlier  instructions  issued  in  1640  by  the  Earl  of 
Northumberland  when  Lord  High  Admiral.  They  were  printed  in  1717  from 
an  imperfect  copy  under  the  title  The  GLconomy  of  H.AI.^s  Navy  Office,  but 
there  are  two  complete  copies  in  the  Pepysian  Library,  one  among  Naval 
Precedents  (No.  2867,  pp.  356-98)  and  the  other  in  Sir  William  Penn's  Collec- 
tions (No.  261 1,  pp.  127-90). 

8  H.  B.  Wheatley,  Samuel  Pepys  and  the  World  he  lived  in,  p.  138. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  27 

and  that  they  were  acting  under  instructions  which  were 
good  enough  to  survive  without  material  alteration  for 
another  century  and  a  half.  Yet  there  is  abundant  evidence 
in  the  Pepysian  manuscripts  and  else^vhere  to  shew  that 
naval  administration  during  the  period  1660-1673  was  in 
the  main  a  disastrous  failure.  The  reason  why  the  collapse 
was  so  complete  was  the  pressure  of  the  Second  Dutch  War 
upon  the  resources  of  the  naval  administration,  but  the 
essential  causes  lay  deeper  than  external  events.  First  and 
foremost  undoubtedly  stands  the  problem  of  finance.  The 
want  of  money  was  the  root  of  all  evil  in  the  Stuart  navy. 
I  propose  to  deal  fully  with  this  problem  in  my  next  lecture, 
and  will  only  ask  you  to  note  its  existence  now.  But  there 
was  more  than  this.  On  15  August,  1666,  Pepys  made  a  re- 
markable entry  in  the  Z^/rtrj/ which  I  think  gives  the  key  to 
the  situation:  'Thence  walked  over  the  Park  with  Sir  W. 
Coventry,  in  our  way  talking  of  the  unhappy  state  of  our 
Office;  and  I  took  an  opportunity  to  let  him  know,  that 
though  the  backwardnesses  of  all  our  matters  of  the  Office 
may  be  well  imputed  to  the  known  want  of  money,  yet  per- 
haps there  might  be  personal  and  particular  failings.'  He 
then  notes  Coventry's  reply,  which  indicates  the  way  in 
which  personal  failings  were  themselves  affected  by  want  of 
money.  '  Nor,  indeed,  says  he,  is  there  room  now-a-days  to 
find  fault  with  any  particular  man,  while  we  are  in  this  con- 
dition for  money.'  The  whole  service  was  breathing  the 
miasmas  exhaled  by  a  corrupt  Court.  Slackness  was  fashion- 
able because  the  King  was  slack,  and  the  higher  naval 
administration  had  to  contend  with  idleness  and  dishonesty 
in  the  lower  ranks  of  the  service  due  to  a  relaxation  of  the 
standards  of  public  and  private  duty.  In  this  conflict  it  was 
at  a  .serious  disadvantage,  for  it  was  impossible  effectively  to 
control  subordinates  whom  there  was  no  money  to  pay.  The 
members  of  the  Navy  Board  were  capable  and  exiiericnccd, 


28  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

and  their  intentions  were  excellent,  but  the  atmosphere 
was  poisonous  and  the  situation  beyond  control.  '  Per- 
sonal and  particular  failings '  in  combination  with  financial 
disorder  ruined  the  Navy  Office,  as  they  would  have 
ruined  any  public  department  in  any  country  and  at  any 
time. 

It  would  be  idle  to  pretend  that  the  Restoration  officials 
conformed  to  modern  standards  of  official  purity;  although 
they  were  very  much  better  than  the  corrupt  administrators 
of  the  reign  of  James  I.    Pepys  is  convicted  on  his  own 
confession  of  a  good  deal  that  would  be  unthinkable  to-day. 
During  the  period  of  the  Diary  his  salary  as  Clerk  of  the 
Acts  was  i^350  a  year;  while  in   1665  he  was  appointed 
Treasurer  of  the  Tangier  Commission,  and  from  1665  to 
1667  he  was  Surveyor-General  of  Victualling  with  an  addi- 
tional ;C  300  a  year  1.  His  salary  as  Secretary  of  the  Admiralty 
was  ;^500  a  year,  but  he  only  enjoyed  this  for  two  periods 
amounting  altogether  to  ten  years.   Yet  as  early  as  May, 
1667,  he  was  worth  £6(^00'' \  and  in  the  end  he  retired  on 
a  competence,  and  was  able  to  indulge  the  expensive  tastes 
of  the  collector.  It  is  evident  that  his  legitimate  emoluments 
must  have  been  supplemented  in  other  ways.    Readers  of 
the  Diary  will  remember  that  on  2  February,  1664,  he  re- 
ceived from  Sir  William  Warren,  the  timber  merchant,  '  a 
pair  of  gloves '  for  his  wife  '  wrapt  up  in  paper,'  which  he 
'would  not  open,  feeling  it  hard';  this  phenomenon  being 
due  to  the  presence,  presumably  in  the  fingers,  of  '  forty 
pieces  in  good  gold.'  Warren  gave  him  many  other  presents, 
and  shewed  himself  'a  most  useful  and  thankful  man,'^ 
bringing  him  on  one  occasion  i^ioo  '  in  a  bag,'  which  Pepys 
'  joyfully '  carried  home  in  a  coach,  Warren  himself  '  ex- 
pressly taking  care  that  nobody  might  see  this  business 

1  Diary,  31  October,  1665.  ^  /^-  31  May,  1667. 

^  lb.  6  February,  1665. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  29 

done.''  On  another  occasion  Captain  Grove  gave  him  money 
in  a  paper  which  Pepys  did  not  open  till  he  reached  his 
office,  taking  the  precaution  of  '  not  looking  into  it  till  all 
the  money  was  out,  that  I  might  say  I  saw  no  money  in  the 
paper  if  ever  I  should  be  questioned  about  it.''^  He  appears 
to  have  profited  largely  by  his  transactions  with  Gauden, 
the  Victualler  of  the  Navy^*;  with  the  Victuallers  for  Tan- 
gier*; and  with  Captain  Cocke,  a  contractor  for  hemp'.  He 
also  made  profits  out  of  flags^  prizes'', and  Tangier  freights*; 
and  the  Diary  records  other  gifts  of  money  and  plate",  in- 
cluding 'a  noble  silver  warming-pan.''"  On  the  other  hand, 
the  official  letters,  numbering  thousands,  conspire  to  produce 
by  a  series  of  delicate  impressions  the  conviction  in  the 
mind  of  the  reader  that  Pepys  was  immensely  proud  of  the 
navy,  and  keenly  anxious  for  its  efficiency  and  success.  His 
attitude  is  affected  by  his  fundamental  Puritanism,  and  in 
the  Diary  he  is  always  trying  to  justify  to  himself  the  pre- 
sents which  he  accepted.  He  was  glad  to  do  the  giver  a 
good  turn  when  he  could,  but  it  was  with  the  proviso  that 
it  should  be  '  without  wrong  to  the  King's  service.'"  The 
inventor  of  such  a  phrase  is  on  dangerous  ground,  but  he  is 
not  yet  utterly  debased;  and  the  high  responsibility  of  his 
later  life  may  very  well  have  served  as  an  antiseptic  to  arrest 
corruption  before  it  had  gone  far.    At  any  rate,  this  is  as 

'  Diary,  i6  September,  1664.  '^  lb.  3  April,  1663. 

^  lb.  21  July,  1664;  4  February,  1667;  2  August,  1667. 

*  /J.  16  July,  1664;  10  September,  1664  ;  16  March,  1665;  31  October,  1667; 
17  December,  1667. 

^  Jb.  25  May,  27  June,  14  August,  and  10  November,  1666. 

•  lb.  27  November,  1664;   28  January,  1665;  28  May,  1669. 
'  lb.  17  July,  1667;   14  August,  1667;  3  February,  166S. 

*  lb.  28  November,  1664;  9  December,  1664  ;  29  March,  1665. 

•  E.g.  lb.  5  January,   2  -May,  27  May,  3  June,    10  June,  22  June,  18  July, 
11  July,  1664;  21  March,  1665;  21  February,  1668;  24  February,  1668. 

'"  Jb.  I  January,  1669. 

"  lb.  10  December,  1663.    Cf.  5  January,  10  September,  24  September,  and 
n  October,  1664,  where  the  same  mental  altitude  is  indicated. 


30  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

much  in  advance  of  the  cynical  greed  of  the  earlier  adminis- 
trators as  it  is  behind  the  contempt  for  all  forms  of  corrup- 
tion which  is  natural  to  well-paid  officials  educated  to 
modern  standards. 

In  1673  the  Test  Act  drove  the  Duke  of  York  from 
office,  and  brought  about  other  important  changes  in  the 
administration  of  the  navy.  The  King  retained  in  his  own 
hands  the  Lord  High  Admiral's  patronage  and  also  the 
Admiralty  dues,  which  were  to  be  collected  for  his  '  only 
use  and  behoof;  but  the  rest  of  his  functions  were  placed 
in  commission  ^  There  were  twelve  Commissioners,  of  whom 
no  less  than  five — the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  Lord  Treasurer, 
the  Lord  Privy  Seal,  and  two  Principal  Secretaries — were 
great  officers  of  State.  Prince  Rupert  was  at  the  head  of 
the  Commission,  and  Samuel  Pepys  was  appointed  Secre- 
tary, while  the  Duke  of  York,  although  no  longer  in  office, 
remained,  in  spite  of  the  Test  Act,  an  important  influence 
in  naval  affairs^.  Pepys  was  succeeded  in  the  office  of  Clerk 
of  the  Acts  by  his  brother,  John  Pepys,  and  his  clerk,  Thomas 
Hayter,  acting  jointly.  There  were  also  changes  in  the  com- 
position of  the  Navy  Board,  but  these  did  not  affect  its 
character  as  a  body  of  naval  experts. 

The  chief  business  of  the  new  administrators  was  to  bring 
to  a  close  the  Third  Dutch  War,  and  then  to  repair,  by  an 
energetic  shipbuilding  policy,  that  depreciation  of  the  navy 
which  was  the  natural  result  of  the  war.  In  this  work  they 
were  on  the  whole  successful.  The  Admiralty  Commissioners 
were  sensible  and  vigilant,  and  they  were  remarkably  well 
served  by  their  Secretary;  while  the  Navy  Board  was  strong 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  xi.  221,  and  Calendar  of  State  Papers, 
Domestic,  1673,  p.  415- 

'^  The  Duke's  presence  'behind  the  throne'  is  confirmed  by  a  number  of 
references  in  the  Admiralty  Letters  {e.g.  ii.  60,  90;  iii.  231,  234,  235,  301, 
319.  329^  331)- 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  31 

on  the  technical  side  of  its  work,  and  fortunate  in  having  as 
one  of  its  members  an  official  so  thoroughly  capable  in  his 
own  department  as  the  great  shipbuilder,  Sir  Anthony 
Deane.  Moreover,  although  the  financial  difficulty  continued 
to  hamper  and  cripple  the  navy,  a  vigorous  shipbuilding 
polic)'  was  made  possible  by  the  better  support  which  Par- 
liament now  gave  to  naval  expansion.  The  idea  of  the 
importance  of  sea  power  had  already  acquired  a  considerable 
hold  upon  the  political  classes,  and  the  wars  with  the  Dutch 
had  served  to  strengthen  it.  Charles  II  had  read  rightly  the 
feeling  of  his  subjects  when  he  allowed  his  Chancellor  to  say 
to  the  Pension  Parliament  in  the  speech  which  opened  its 
eleventh  session :  '  There  is  not  so  lawful  or  commendable 
a  jealousy  in  the  world  as  an  Englishman's  of  the  growing 
greatness  of  any  Prince  at  sea.''  Thus  the  most  important 
achievement  of  the  period  1673-79  was  the  Act  of  1677 — 
the  17th  century  equivalent  of  a  modern  Naval  Defence 
Act — for  the  building  of  30  new  ships.  Pepys,  now  a  mem- 
ber of  Parliament,  made  in  support  of  it  a  comprehensive 
and  vigorous  speech-,  and  he  modestly  attributed  the  adop- 
tion of  the  scheme  to  the  impression  this  produced  upon 
the  House.  '  I  doubt  not,'  he  writes  to  the  Navy  Board,  on 
23  February,  1677,  'but  ere  this  you  may  have  heard  the 
issue  of  this  morning's  debates  in  the  House  of  Commons 
touching  the  navy,  wherein  I  thank  God  the  account  they 
received  from  me  of  the  past  and  present  state  thereof,  com- 
pared first  with  one  another  and  then  with  the  naval  force 
of  our  neighbours  as  it  now  is,  different  from  what  it  ever 

'  Cobbctt,  Parliamentary  History,  iv.  587. 

*  The  substance  of  this  speech  is  reported  in  Grey's  Debates  (iv.  115),  but 
there  is  in  the  I'epysian  Miscellanies  (ii.  453)  a  copy  of  notes  for  this  or  some 
other  speech,  entitled  '  Heads  for  a  Discourse  in  Parliament  upon  the  business 
of  the  Navy,  Anno  1676,'  which,  though  it  differs  from  the  report,  does  not  do 
so  more  widely  than  what  an  orator  actually  s;iys  often  differs  from  what  he 
intended  to  say.    An  abstract  is  given  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  AfSS.,  i.  48. 


32  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

heretofore  has  been,  was  so  received  as  that  the  debates 
arising  therefrom  terminated  in  a  vote  for  the  supplying  his 
Majesty  with  a  sum  of  money  for  building  ships....  '^  The 
rates  and  tonnage  of  the  30  new  ships  thus  provided  for  are 
specified  in  the  Act^. 

The  new  programme  was  pushed  forward  with  the  utmost 
energy,  but  before  it  was  completed  the  control  of  the  navy 
again  changed  hands.  In  1679  the  excitement  of  the  Popish 
Plot  drove  the  Duke  of  York  from  England,  and  Pepys  was 
involved  in  his  disgrace.  He  was  accused  of  conspiring  with 
Sir  Anthony  Deane  to  send  information  about  the  navy  to 
the  French  Government  and  to  extirpate  the  Protestant 
religion ;  and  was  committed  to  the  Tower  on  the  Speaker's 
warranto  His  office  at  the  Admiralty  was,  however,  vacated 
by  what  was  in  form  a  voluntary  resignation*. 

On  the  withdrawal  of  the  Duke  of  York  and  the  resigna- 
tion of  Pepys,  the  higher  administration  of  the  navy  passed 
to  a  new  Admiralty  Commission  of  seven,  who  claimed  and 
enjoyed,  in  addition  to  the  powers  of  the  previous  Commis- 
sion, those  other  prerogatives  which  the  King  had  hitherto 
reserved  to  himself^  But  although  they  had  more  power 
than  their  predecessors,  they  were  much  less  competent  to 
use  it,  for  they  were  almost  entirely  without  naval  experience. 
Sir  Henry  Capel,  the  First  Commissioner,  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  navy  until  his  appointments  The  same  can  be  said 
of  Daniel  Finch,  who,  although  he  became  famous  afterwards 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  v.  345. 

2  29  Car.  II,  c.  I. 

'^  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  xliv.  363. 

*  Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  ix.  282. 

®  Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  ii.  411.  There  are  two  copies  of  their  com- 
mission in  the  Pepysian  Library  {Naval  Precedents,  p.  236,  and  Miscellanies, 
ii.  413). 

®  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  ix.  17. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVV  33 

as  Earl  of  Nottingham,  was  at  this  time  only  a  young 
politician  just  beginning  his  official  life'.  Sir  Thomas  Lee's 
reputation  was  that  of  a  parliamentary  debater'-;  and  the 
other  names  are  not  notable.  The  Commission  represents 
an  intrusion  of  politicians  into  a  sphere  where  they  were 
quite  out  of  place.  The  introduction  of  Lord  Brouncker  in 
1681  was  a  step  in  the  right  direction,  although  he  was  not  a 
professional  seaman;  and  other  improvements  were  effected 
in  1682,  but  they  came  too  late.  The  Navy  Board  was  still 
composed  of  experts,  but  they  could  not  stop  the  mischief 
wrought  by  the  incompetent  authority  under  which  they  had 
to  act.  The  Commissioners  did  not  find  a  lenient  critic  in 
Pepys,  and  his  comment  upon  them  is  worth  quoting  because 
it  contains  a  shrewd  appreciation  of  Charles  II.  '  No  king,' 
he  wrote  in  his  private  Minute  Book,  'ever  did  so  unaccount- 
able a  thing  to  oblige  his  people  by,  as  to  dissolve  a  Com- 
mission of  the  Admiralty  then  in  his  own  hand,  who  best 
understands  the  business  of  the  sea  of  any  prince  the  world 
ever  had,  and  things  never  better  done,  and  put  it  into  hands 
which  he  knew  were  wholly  ignorant  thereof,  sporting  him- 
self with  their  ignorance.'-'  The  last  phrase  brings  before  us 
vividly  the  King's  characteristic  way. 

The  result  that  followed  was  inevitable.  The  dockyards 
were  disorganised;  the  effective  force  of  the  fleet  was  re- 
duced ;  the  reserve  of  stores  was  depleted.  The  Commis- 
sioners adopted  a  wasteful  policy  of  retrenchment  at  all 
costs.  Pepys  writes  of  '  the  effects  of  inexperience,  daily 
discovering  themselves  '  in  the  conduct  of  the  Commission*; 
of 'general  and  habitual  supineness,  wastefulness,  and  neglect 
of  order  universally  spread  through'  the  whole  navy',  so 
that  '  whereas  peace  used  evermore  to  be  improved  to  the 

'  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  xix.  i.  -  lb.  xxxii.  383. 

*  I'epysi.an  MSS.,  No.  ■2866,  Naval  Minutes,  p.  76. 

♦  I'cpys,  Mcinoires  0/ the  Royal  Navy,  1679-88  (Oxford  reprint),  p.  6. 
»  lb.  p.  18. 

T.  3 


34  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

making  up  the  wasteful  effects  of  war,  this  appears... to  have 
brought  the  navy  into  a  state  more  deplorable  in  its  ships 
and  less  relievable  from  its  stores  than  can  be  shewn  to  have 
happened  at  the  close  of  the  most  expenseful  war,'^  His 
indictment  is  supported  by  a  formidable  array  of  facts  and 
figures,  and  as  Macaulay  points  out^,  is  confirmed  by  a 
report  from  an  expert  of  the  French  Admiralty,  so  it  cannot 
be  dismissed  as  mere  denunciation  inspired  by  a  natural 
prejudice  against  the  men  who  had  displaced  him. 

Things  were  so  bad  that  in  1684  the  Commission  was 
revoked,  and  from  this  date  until  his  death  the  office  of  Lord 
High  Admiral  was  once  more  executed  by  the  King,  with 
the  advice  and  assistance  of  '  his  royal  brother  the  Duke  of 
York'^;  and  on  his  accession  James  II  became  his  own 
Lord  High  Admiral.  The  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Admir- 
alty was  revived,  and  Pepys  was  appointed  thereto ;  and  the 
government  of  the  navy  remained  in  the  same  hands  until 
the  Revolution. 

The  important  episode  of  the  period  1684- 1688  is  the 
appointment  of  the  Special  Commission  of  1686  for  the 
regeneration  of  the  navy — an  experiment  in  organisation 
for  which  Pepys  was  largely  responsible^  A  sum  of  ^400,000 
a  year  was  to  be  assigned  to  the  navy^,  and  this  was  to  be 

^  Pepys,  Memoires  of  the  Royal  Navy,  1679-88  (Oxford  reprint),  p.  9. 

2  History  of  England  {^ox\^va.^Xi%,  2  vols.,  1880),  i.  146. 

3  It  is  often  said  that  the  office  of  Lord  High  Admiral  was  restored  to  the 
Duke;  but  this  is  clearly  not  the  view  of  Pepys  (Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies, 
xi.  225). 

•*  Materials  for  the  history  of  this  experiment  are  to  be  found  in  a  manuscript 
volume  in  the  Pepysian  Library  entitled,  My  Diary  relating  to  the  Commission 
constituted  by  King  James  II,  Anno  16^6,  for  the  Recovery  of  the  Navy,  with  a 
Collection  of  the  Principal  Papers  incideiitto  and  conclusive  of  the  satne  (Pepysian 
MSS.,  No.  1490). 

^  Pepys's  '  Proposition  '  is  printed  in  his  Memoires  (pp.  18-23);  ^ri^  further 
details  of  the  exact  distribution  of  the  ;^40o,ooo  a  year  are  given  in  a  paper  en- 
titled '  Measures  supporting  my  Proposition '  (Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  1490,  p.  123). 
See  also  the  writer's  Introduction  to  the  Oxford  reprint  of  the  Memoires. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  35 

administered  by  a  body  of  experts,  on  which  the  two  most 
important  figures  were  Sir  Anthony  Deane,  the  great  ship- 
builder, and  Sir  John  Narbrough,  the  hero  of  the  war  with 
Algiers.  The  Commission  was  intended  to  last  for  a  term  of 
three  years,  the  time  estimated  to  be  necessary  for  putting 
the  navy  into  a  state  of  thorough  repair,  but  its  work  was 
performed  with  such  energy  and  efificiency  that  the  Com- 
mission was  dissolved  in  October,  1688,  after  only  2^  years 
tenure  of  office,  and  the  system  of  government  by  Principal 
Officers  and  Commissioners  of  the  Navy  acting  under  the 
Lord  High  Admiral  was  restored. 

The  way  in  which  Pepys  manoeuvred  Sir  Anthony  Deane 
on  to  the  Commission  deserves  a  passing  notice.  It  was  not 
an  easy  matter,  as  Deane  replied  to  a  flattering  overture  by 
pointing  out  that  his  ordinary  business  as  a  shipwright  was 
bringing  in  to  him  '  more  than  double  the  benefit... the  com- 
mon wages  of  a  Commissioner  of  the  Navy  amounts  to,'  and 
moreover  he  was  fifteen  in  family,  '  and  not  without  expec- 
tation of  more.''  Pepys  was  then  directed  by  James  II  to 
make  a  list  of  all  the  notable  shipbuilders  in  England,  one 
of  whom  might  be  selected  as  an  alternative  to  Deane.  The 
result  was  a  very  libellous  and  tendencious  document-. 
Sir  John  Tippetts  was  dismissed  because  '  his  age  and  infir- 
mities arising  from  the  gout  (keeping  him  generally  within 
doors,  or  at  least  incapable  of  any  great  action  abroad)  would 
render  him  wholly  unable  to  go  through  the  fatigue  of  the 
work  designed  for  Sir  Anthony  Deane.'  The  second  candi- 
date. Sir  Phineas  Pett,  is  briefly  dismissed  with  the  words 
'  In  every  respect  as  the  first'  Another  candidate  'never 
built  a  ship  in  his  life. .  .he  is  also  full  of  the  gout,  and  by  con- 
sequence as  little  capable  as  the  former  of  the  fatigue  before 
mentioned.'  Another  is  '  illiterate. .  .low-spirited,  of  little  ap- 
pearance or  authority  ' ;  his  father  '  a  great  drinker,  and  since 

*  I'epysian  M.SS.,  No.  1490,  p.  131.  ^  lb.  p.  145. 

3—2 


36         SAMUEL  PEPYS  AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY 

killed  with  it.'  Mr  Lawrence,  the  master  shipwright  at  Wool- 
wich, is  '  a  low-spirited,  slow,  and  gouty  man... illiterate  and 
supine  to  the  last  degree.'  Another  is  '  an  ingenious  young 
man,but  said  rarely  to  have  handled  a  tool  in  his  life' — a  mere 
draughtsman.  Another  '  is  one  that  loves  his  ease,  as  having 
been  ever  used  to  it,  not  knowing  what  it  is  to  work  or  take 
pains... and  very  debauched.'  Another  is  'a  good  and  pain- 
ful, but  very  plain  and  illiterate  man;  a  Phanatick;  of  no 
authority  and  countenance.'  And  so  he  goes  on  through  an 
appalling  list  of  disqualifications,  which  had  their  intended 
effect  upon  the  King's  mind;  they  induced  'full  conviction 
of  the  necessity  of  his  prevailing  with  and  satisfying  Sir  A. 
D.'^  Satisfactory  terms  were  arranged^,  and  on  Saturday, 
13  March,  1686,  Mr  Pepys  brought  Sir  Anthony  Deane  'to 
the  King  in  the  morning  to  kiss  his  hand,  who  declared  the 
same  to  him  to  his  full  satisfaction,  and  afterwards  to  my 
Lord  Treasurer  at  the  Treasury  Chamber  with  the  same 
mutual  content.'^ 

The  circumstances  in  which  the  second  Secretaryship  of 
Samuel  Pepys  came  to  an  end  are  part  of  the  general  history 
of  England,  and  need  no  repetition  here.  On  21  December, 
1688,  Pepys  mentions  that  the  King  was  'a  second  time 
withdrawn,'*  and  on  Christmas  Day  we  find  him  writing  to 
the  fleet  at  the  bidding  of  the  Prince  of  Orange^  He  con- 
tinued to  act  as  Secretary  of  the  Admiralty  until  20  Febru- 
ary, 1689,  but  on  9  March  he  was  directed  to  hand  over  his 
papers  to  his  successor,  Phineas  Bowles*.  He  was  too  inti- 
mately associated  with  the  exiled  James  for  the  government 
of  the  Revolution  to  continue  him  in  power. 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  1490,  p.  (6. 

^  The  precise  nature  of  these  does  not  transpire,  but  Deane  had  stated  that,  in 
justice  to  his  family,  he  could  not  value  his  whole  time  at  less  than  ;^iooo  a 
year  (/d.  p.  139).   The  King's  first  offer  was  jCbOO.  ^  lb.  p.  17. 

■*  Pepysian  MSS.,  Adtniralty  Letters,  xv.  470.  *  lb.  xv.  472. 

*  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  xliv.  364. 


LECTURE   III 

FINANCE 

It  is  scarcely  a  matter  for  surprise  that  those  historians  who 
were  the  first  to  appreciate  the  great  Puritan  movement,  so 
long  under  a  cloud,  should  have  yielded  to  the  temptation 
of  over-emphasizing  the  contrast  between  the  vigour  and 
comparative  purity  of  government  during  the  Interregnum 
and  its  nervelessness  and  corruption  under  the  Younger 
Stuarts.  That  some  such  contrast  exists  it  is  impossible  to 
deny.  The  Commonwealth  navy  was  on  the  whole  well 
managed,  and  every  reader  of  Fepys's  Diary  knows  that  he 
was  disposed  to  regret  in  private  the  administrative  successes 
of  the  treasonable  times.  3  June,  1667:  '  To  Spring  Garden, 
and  there  eat  and  drank  a  little,  and  then  to  walk  up  and 
down  the  garden,  reflecting  upon  the  bad  management  of 
things  now,  compared  with  what  it  was  in  the  late  rebellious 
times,  when  men,  some  for  fear  and  some  for  religion, 
minded  their  business,  which  none  now  do,  by  being  void  of 
both.'  Or  again,  4  September,  1668 : '  The  business  of  abusing 
the  Puritans  begins  to  grow  stale  and  of  no  use,  they  being 
the  people  that  at  last  will  be  found  the  wisest.'  But  it  is 
possible,  while  dwelling  upon  a  moral  contrast,  to  ignore  the 
difference  in  the  financial  situation.  The  virtuous  Puritan 
colonels  who  controlled  the  navy  under  the  Commonwealth 
had  command  of  large  financial  resources,  for  confiscations 
and  Royalist  compositions  were  very  productive,  and  the 
governments  of  the  Interregnum  could  apply  to  the  raising 
of  taxes  irresistible  military  force.  As  far  as  the  composi- 
tions went,  they  were,  however,  living  upon  capital,  and 
when  this  was  exhausted,  the  pressure  of  financial  difficulties 


38  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

soon  began  to  be  felt.  The  maintenance  of  the  great  pro- 
fessional army  came  to  be  a  burden  too  heavy  for  the 
resources  of  the  country  as  they  stood  in  that  day,  and  the 
navy  suffered  from  the  competition  of  the  army  for  the  avail- 
able funds.  The  disease  usually  assigned  to  the  Restoration 
period  declared  itself  before  the  Restoration  took  place,  and 
when  the  King  came  back  he  found  the  navy  already  deep 
in  debt.  In  1659  nearly  half  a  million  was  due  on  account 
of  wages  alone,  and  the  total  debt  must  have  been  over 
three-quarters  of  a  million^  An  official  report  of  July,  1659, 
estimated  the  outgoings  at  ;^20,ooo  a  week,  but  pointed  out 
that  '  since  May  3 1  has  not  been  received  above  ^8000  a 
week.' 2  It  must  be  remembered  that  with  17th  century 
money  values  these  figures  are  very  much  larger  than  they 
look,  and  as  the  State  had  not  yet  invented  funding  debt, 
and  so  charging  it  on  posterity,  its  position  was  that  of  an 
extravagant  private  person.  Thus  the  naval  administrators 
of  the  Restoration  were  succeeding  to  a  bankrupt  estate,  and 
in  the  Diary  Pepys  strikes  a  note  of  despair.  31  July,  1660: 
the  navy  'is  in  very  sad  condition,  and  money  must  be 
raised  for  it'  11  June,  1661:  'now  the  credit  of  the  Office 
is  brought  so  low,  that  none  will  sell  us  anything  without 
our  personal  security  given  for  the  same,'  31  August,  1661 : 
*  we  are  at  our  Office  quiet,  only  for  lack  of  money  all  things 
go  to  rack.'  30  September,  1661 :  '  the  want  of  money  puts 
all  things,  and  above  all  the  Navy,  out  of  order.-'  28  June, 
1662 :  '  God  knows,  the  King  is  not  able  to  set  out  five  ships 
at  this  present  without  great  difficulty,  we  neither  having 
money,  credit,  nor  stores.' 

The  same  difficulties  were  felt  before,  during,  and  after  the 
Second  Dutch  War.  In  September,  1664,  when  war  was  im- 
pending, Commissioner  Pett  tried  to  buy  tallow  and  candles 
for  the  navy  at  Maidstone,  but  found  the  country  '  so  shy ' 

^  A.  W.  Tedder,  The  Navy  of  the  Restoration,  p.  41.  ^  lb.  p.  41  n. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  39 

that  the\-  refused  to  deal'.  In  January,  1666,  the  Commis- 
sioner at  Portsmouth  wrote  that  all  men  distrust  London 
pay-.  Nearly  half  the  letters  to  the  Navy  Board  calendared 
for  1665-6  refer  to  the  difficulties  experienced  by  govern- 
ment agents  in  obtaining  supplies^  In  this  way  bargains 
were  lost  for  want  of  ready  moneys  and  where  credit  was 
obtained,  enormous  prices  had  to  be  paid*.  The  hardships  to 
private  persons  were  intolerable.  A  firm  of  slop-sellers  who 
had  supplied  goods  to  the  value  of  ;^24,8oo  during  the  last 
two  years,  and  had  received  only  £800,  would  shortly  be 
ruined  in  their  estates  and  families*.  A  Bristol  shipbuilder 
writes:  'I  have  so  disabled  myself  in  the  relief  of  poor 
workmen  that  I  am  now  out  of  a  capacity  of  relieving 
mine  own  family:  I  have  disbursed  and  engaged  for  more 
than  I  am  worth.'"  The  Barber  Surgeons'  Company  claim 
;^i,496.  6s.  10^.,  long  unpaid,  for  filling  medicine  chests,  and 
complain  of  the  opprobrious  language  they  receive  from 
surgeons  who  can  get  no  pay'^;  and  a  certain  poor  widow,  a 
creditor  of  the  government,  is  in  a  most  deplorable  condition, 
without  a  stick  of  wood  or  coals  to  lay  on  the  fire,  and  owing 
money  to  about  fifteen  people  as  poor  as  herself,  who  torment 
her  daily*. 

The  total  annual  charge  of  the  navy  in  time  of  peace  is 
not  easy  to  calculate.    On  18  February,  1663'",  Pepys  him- 

'  State  Papers,  Domeslii,  Charles  II,  cii.   123. 

-  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1665-6,  p.  189.  See  also  ?i!'.  1666-7, 
p.  233,  and  Diary,  20  June,  1667. 

'  lb.  1665-6,  p.  xxxix.  ^  lb.  1666-7,  p.  228,  and  1665-6,  p.  189. 

'  Even  in  1658  the  Navy  Commissioners  had  been  obliged  to  buy  at  from 
30  to  50  per  cent,  above  the  market  price  (M.  Oppenheim,  The  Administration 
of  the  Royal  Navy,  1509-1660,  p.  351). 

•  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1664-5,  p.  353. 

^  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  ccxlii.  56;  Calendar  of  State  Papers, 
Domestic,  1667-8,  p.  563. 

*  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1667,  p.  454. 
'  Cf  ib.  1667-S,  p.  455  and  1666-7,  p,  233. 

'0  Diary. 


40  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

self  estimated  *  the  true  charge  of  the  Navy,'  since  the  King's 
coming  in  to  Christmas  last,  to  have  been  '  after  the  rate  of 
^^374,743  a  year,'  but  it  is  not  clear  what  this  figure  includes. 
Perhaps  the  pre-war  expenditure  may  be  put  at  not  far 
short  of  ;^400,ooo.  In  a  letter  to  Sir  Philip  Warwick,  dated 
14  March,  i666\  he  supplies  materials  for  estimating  expen- 
diture in  time  of  war.  So  enormous  were  the  arrears  that 
the  sum  of  ;^2,3 12,876  would  be  needed  to  pay  the  fleet  and 
yards  to  i  August,  1665,  to  clear  off  the  arrears  of  the  Vic- 
tualler and  provide  victuals  for  the  current  year,  to  finish 
ten  new  ships  that  had  been  ordered,  and  to  meet  wear 
and  tear  and  wages  for  the  first  ten  months  of  1666.  To- 
wards this  the  total  funds  available,  including  a  Parliamen- 
tary grant  of  i^i, 250,000  made  in  October,  1665,  amounted 
to  ^^1,498,483.  Thus  there  was  a  deficit  of  ;^8i4,393.  But 
to  this  would  have  to  be  added  other  charges  not  included 
in  the  first  estimate — principally  wear  and  tear  and  wages 
for  the  last  two  months  of  1666,  arrears  of  wages,  and  other 
debts,  which  would  increase  the  deficit  to  iJ"i, 277,1 61,  over 
and  above  '  the  whole  expense  of  the  Office  of  the  Ord- 
nance.' In  other  words,  the  funds  available  for  the  navy  in 
March,  1666,  in  the  second  year  of  the  war,  were  scarcely 
more  than  half  its  probable  requirements-.  Nevertheless, 
Pepys  derived  great  consolation  from  a  calculation  which 
he  had  made  of  the  cost  of  the  First  Dutch  War  in  1653, 
whereby  it  appeared  that  '  the  State's  charge  then  seems  to 
have  exceeded  the  King's  for  the  same  service  and  time  by 
;^i7i,785.'^   This  is  the  justification  of  a  note  in  the  Diary 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  ■2589,  pp.  1-3. 

^  Another  statement  of  the  expenditure  of  the  navy  during  the  Second  Dutch 
War  is  to  be  found  in  a  letter  from  the  Navy  Board  to  the  Lord  Treasurer, 
dated  24  September,  1666,  which  gives  for  the  information  of  ParUament,  just 
then  about  to  meet,  an  estimate  for  the  period  i  September,  1664,  to  29  September, 
1666.  This  calculation  is  given  in  the  writer's  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  102. 

3  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2589,  p.  118. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  41 

of  16  March,  1669:  'Upon  the  whole  do  find  that  the  late 
times  in  all  their  management  were  not  more  husbandly  than 
we.'  To  meet  the  situation  recourse  was  again  had  to  Parlia- 
ment, and  in  October,  1666,  the  Commons  voted  i^  1,800,000, 
although  their  suspicion  that  the  money  was  being  wasted 
led  to  the  appointment  of  that  Commission  of  Public  Ac- 
counts which  was  to  give  Pepys  and  his  colleagues  infinite 
trouble',  and  was  to  lay  the  foundation  of  Parliamentary 
enquiry  into  the  proceedings  of  the  executive. 

As  soon  as  the  war  came  to  an  end,  the  higher  authorities 
began  to  consider  schemes  of  retrenchment  in  the  navy.  A 
committee  appointed  29  July,  1667,  by  Order  in  Council,  to 
consider  the  King's  expenses  called  for  a  report  upon  the 
cost  of  the  navy,  and  the  Duke  of  York  put  forward  some 
preliminary  suggestions^  the  most  important  being  a  reduc- 
tion of  certain  establishments  and  the  closing  of  the  dock- 
yard at  Harwich.  He  also  suggested  a  reduction  in  the 
number  of  the  Commissioners  from  ten  to  six,  or  at  most 
seven,  although  he  was  disposed  to  resist  any  great  reduction 
in  their  salaries  on  the  ground  that  these  should  be  sufficient 
to  make  the  Principal  Officers  and  Commissioners  'value 
their  employments,  and  not  subject  them  to  a  necessity  of 
base  compliances  with  others  to  the  King's  prejudice,  by 
which  to  get  one  shilling  to  himself  he  must  lose  ten  to  the 
King,  and  when  he  shall  have  once  subjected  himself  to  an 
inferior  pleasure  by  such  a  falsehood,  he  never  more  dares 
act  the  part  of  a  good  officer,  being  by  his  former  guilt  be- 
come a  slave  to  his  inferior.'  This  argument,  while  it  served 
incidentally  to  protect  Pepys's  emoluments,  is  not  a  bad 
.statement  of  the  case  for  a  living  wage  as  an  antidote 
to  corruption.  The  scheme  eventually  adopted,  suggested 
by  Sir  William  Coventry,  aimed  at  a  reduction  of  peace 

'  Ranke,  History  0/ Ent^land,  iii.  ^^()-^o\  see  also  the  Diary. 
-  State  /'a/>ers,  Donuitic,  CharUs  II,  ccxiii.  65. 


42  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

expenditure  to  ;{^20o,ooo  a  year\  but  the  goal  was  never 
reached,  for  the  naval  expenditure  of  the  next  two  or  three 
years  was  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Hmited  to  the  ;^200,ooo 
a  year  proposed,  nor  was  ready  money  provided — an  essen- 
tial condition  of  the  scheme.  The  poHcy  of  retrenchment 
on  a  great  scale  would  have  to  be  carried  on  for  a  long  time 
before  it  could  affect  the  accumulated  masses  of  the  navy 
debt^  and  there  is  abundant  evidence  of  continued  financial 
stringency  after  the  war  as  well  as  before  it.  This  carried 
its  nemesis  into  the  Third  Dutch  War.  The  comparative 
failure  of  the  naval  operations  of  1673  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  fleet  had  been  sent  out  insufficiently  manned  and 
equipped ;  and  the  want  of  a  reserve  of  stores  and  of  men 
and  materials  for  refitting  occasioned  the  loss  of  nearly  six 
weeks  in  the  best  season  of  the  year^ 

,  As  soon  as  the  Third  Dutch  War  came  to  an  end  in 
February,  1674,  another  period  of  feverish  retrenchment 
set  in,  and  an  attempt  was  made  '  to  lessen  the  growing 
charge  in  the  navy,  towards  which  no  one  particular  seems 
more  to  conduce  than  that  of  reducing  the  number  of  the 
persons  employed  therein,  both  at  sea  and  in  the  yards,'* 
Other  economies  were  also  practised.  Ships  as  they  came 
in  were  paid  off  and  laid  up^,  and  it  was  decided  to  under- 
take no  new  works  *  until  his  Majesty  hath  in  some  measure 

^  Penn,  Memorials  of  Sir  William  Penn,  ii.  528;  Calendar  of  State  Papers, 
Domestic,  1667,  p.  420.  On  Coventry's  connexion  with  the  scheme  see  Diary, 
19  August,  1667.  Particulars  of  it  are  given  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS., 
i.  104.  With  this  calculation  should  be  compared  a  detailed  estimate  of  the 
annual  charge  of  'his  Majesty's  navy  in  harbour'  for  the  year  1684  (Pepysian 
MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Precedents,  p.  402),  the  substance  of  which  is  given 
in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  iii.  The  total  is  ^135,084.  6s.  i\d.,  but 
this  is  exclusive  of  ships  at  sea, 

2  Estimated  at  the  end  of  the  war  as  ;^i,  100,000  (Calendar  of  State  Papers, 
Domestic,  1667,  p.  471). 

3  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1673,  pp.  x,  218,  333,  341,  510. 
*  Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  iii.  130.  °  lb.  iii,  182. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  43 

got  over  the  debt  which  remains  to  him  upon  the  old.'' 
Meanwhile  the  official  correspondence  contains  frequent 
references  to  the  shortness  of  money.  For  instance,  in  Janu- 
ary, 1674,  the  S-wan  was  delayed  at  Plymouth  'from  the 
unwillingness  of  the  tradesmen  to  trust  his  Majesty  further'-; 
and  in  December,  1677,  Pepys  reports  from  Sir  John  Kemp- 
thorne  that  '  the  brewer  at  Portsmouth  doth  absolutely  de- 
clare that  he  will  not  provide  any  beer  for  the  Riipert  and 
Centurion  till  he  is  better  assured  of  his  payment  than  he 
now  is.'*  At  the  beginning  of  1678  the  situation  was  some- 
what relieved  by  the  Parliamentary  vote  for  preparations 
against  France,  but  this  improvement  was  of  short  duration, 
and  in  December  we  find  Pepys  referring  to  one  of  the  most 
wasteful  consequences  of  a  want  of  money — *  that  mighty 
charge  which  has  so  long  lain  upon  our  hands  for  want  of 
money  wherewith  to  discharge  those  of  the  ships  which 
remain  yet  unpaid  off.'^ 

In  spite  of  the  frequent  references  to  want  of  funds  scat- 
tered up  and  down  the  official  correspondence,  the  financial 
position  of  the  navy  greatly  improved  in  the  later  years  of 
the  Restoration  period.  At  Lady  Day,  1686,  the  debts  of 
the  Navy  Office  were  reckoned  at  iJ^  17 1,836.  2s.  gd. — a  re- 
markable reduction  on  the  enormous  totals  of  1666'.  After 
the  accession  of  James  II  no  less  than  ^305,806  was  paid 
by  the  Treasurer  of  the  Navy  on  account  of  debts  incurred 
in  Charles  11 's  reign^  so  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  that, 

'  Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  iii.  186. 
2  lb.  iii.  49,  51,  ^1. 

^  lb.  vi.  I--].  Other  instances  are  given  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  AIS.S., 
i.  108. 

*  /b.  viii.  403. 

*  A  State  of  the  Debt  contracted  in  the  Navy  between  i  fanuary,  i67i[-2]... 
and  15  March,  1686,  and  which  remains  at  this  day  unpaid  according  to  the 
booksinthis  Office...  (I'epysian  }>\SS., Miscellanies,  xi.  18).  This  paper  is  printed 
in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  no. 

"  Pepysian  MS.S.,  Miscellanies,  xi.  20. 


44  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

both  in  the  closing  years  of  Charles  II  and  the  earlier  years 
of  James  II,  money  was  still  difficult  to  get,  and  the  old 
complaints  recur  although  in  a  less  aggravated  form. 

Bearing  in  mind  these  facts  about  finance,  let  us  pass  on 
to  consider  some  of  their  practical  results. 

During  the  period  from  1660  to  1688  the  operations  of 
the  navy  were  grievously  hampered  by  the  deficiency  of 
men,  both  in  the  dockyards  and  at  sea;  and  this  deficiency 
was  mainly,  if  not  entirely,  due  to  the  want  of  pay. 

The  state  of  things  during  the  Second  Dutch  War  was 
appalling.  The  Diary  contains  pitiable  stories  of  poor  sea- 
men starving  in  the  streets  because  there  was  no  money  to 
pay  their  wages.  7  October,  1665:  'Did  business,  though 
not  much,  at  the  Office ;  because  of  the  horrible  crowd  and 
lamentable  moan  of  the  poor  seamen  that  lie  starving  in 
the  streets  for  lack  of  money,  which  do  trouble  and  per- 
plex me  to  the  heart;  and  more  at  noon  when  we  were  to 
go  through  them,  for  then  a  whole  hundred  of  them  followed 
us;  some  cursing,  some  swearing,  and  some  praying  to  us.'^ 
We  hear  of  wages  nine  months^,  twenty-two^,  twenty-six, 
thirty- four*,  and  even  fifty-two^  months  in  arrear.  One 
captain  with  a  breezy  style  complains  that  for  want  of 
pay  '  instead  of  a  young  commander,  he  is  rendered  an  old 
beggar.'^  The  crews  of  two  ships  petition  the  Navy  Board 
to  order  them  their  pay  '  that  their  families  may  not  be 
altogether  starved  in  the  streets,  and  themselves  go  like 
heathens,  having  nothing  to  cover  their  nakedness.'''  The 
Commissioner  at  Portsmouth  writes  of  workmen  in  the  yard 

^  Cf.  Diary,   6  July,    1665,   30  September,   1665,  31  October,  1665,  and 
12  March,  1667. 
^  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1664-5,  P-  304' 
*  lb   1667,  p.  46.  *  lb.  1667,  p.  75. 

'  lb.  1667,  p.  Ix  note.    See  also  p.  514.  ^  lb.  1665-6,  p.  385. 

^  lb.  1667,  p.  Ix  note,  and  p.  514. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  45 

there,  that  they  are  turned  out  of  doors  by  their  landlords, 
and  perish  more  like  dogs  than  men '. 

Naturally  enough,  this  state  of  things  affected  discipline. 
The  crews  of  the  Little  Victory  and  the  Pearl  at  Hull 
mutinied  for  want  of  pay,  and  refused  to  weigh  anchor^  and 
in  the  yards  the  workmen  gave  a  great  deal  of  trouble.  The 
Chatham  shipwrights  and  caulkers,  to  whom  two  years' 
wages  were  owing,  marched  up  to  London  to  appeal  to  the 
Navy  Board,  as  '  their  families  are  denied  trust  and  cannot 
subsist,'  and  under  this  pressure  we  are  told  that  arrange- 
ments were  made  'to  pay  off  some  of  the  most  disorderly.'^ 
At  Chatham  the  Commissioner  writes  that  he  is  almost 
torn  to  pieces  by  the  workmen  of  the  yard  for  their  weekly 
pay^    Sir  John  Mennes  writes  from  Portsmouth  on  14  July, 

1665,  for  money  to  be  sent  immediately  to  stop  'the  bawlings 
and  impatience  of  these  people,  especially  of  their  wives, 
whose  tongues  are  as  foul  as  the  daughters  of  Billingsgate.'* 
Apparently  the  money  did  not  come,  and  in  October  the 
Commissioner  was  forced  to  lend  the  men  ten  shillings 
apiece  to  keep  them  from  mutiny®.  A  fortnight  later  a 
mutin)'  actually  broke  out,  but  Commissioner  Middlcton 
shewed  praiseworthy  promptitude  in  dealing  with  it.  Ac- 
cording to  his  own  account,  he  seized  '  a  good  cudgel '  out 
of  the  hands  of  one  of  the  men,  and  took  more  pains  in  the 
use  of  it  than  in  any  business  for  the  last  twelve  months. 
He  adds:  '  I  have  not  been  troubled  since.''   On  27  October, 

1666,  the  outlook  in  London  was  so  threatening  that  the 
Navy  Board  applied  to  the  Officers  of  the  Ordnance  for 
•twelve  well-fixed  firelocks  with  a  supply  of  powder  and 
bullet '  for  the  defence  of  the  Navy  Office,  in  view  of  '  the 

'  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1664-5,  p.  522. 

2  lb.  1667,  p.  75.  =*  lb.  1667-8,  p.  xiv. 

♦  lb.  1667-8,  p.  443.  '  lb.  1664-5,  p.  475. 

•  lb.  1665-6,  p.  32.  ^  r.>.   1665-6,  p.  53. 


46  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

present  great  refractoriness  and  tumultuousness  of  the  sea-  | 

men.'^  Nor  did  the  trouble  end  when  peace  came,  for  the 
financial  situation  was  still  difficult.  On  ii  March,  1671, 
Jonas  Shish  wrote  from  Deptford  to  the  Navy  Board:  '  The 
shipwrights  and  caulkers  are  very  much  enraged  by  reason 
that  their  wages  is  not  paid  them.  The  last  night  the  whole 
street  next  the  King's  Yard,  both  of  men  and  women,  was 
in  an  uproar,  and  meeting  with  Mr  Bagwell,  my  fore- 
man, they  fell  on  him,  and  it  was  God's  great  mercy  they 
had  not  spoiled  him.  I  was  then  without  the  gate  at  my 
son's  hpuse,  and  hearing  the  tumult,  I  did  think  how  Israel 
stoned  Hadoram  that  was  over  the  tribute,  and  King  Reho- 
boam  made  speed  and  gat  him  up  to  fly  to  Jerusalem,  so  I 
gat  speedily  into  the  King's  Yard,  for  I  judge  if  the  rude 
multitude  had  met  with  me,  I  should  have  had  worse  measure 
than  my  foreman.' ^ 

In  view  of  these  facts  about  pay,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
it  was  found  difficult  to  obtain  men.  In  order  to  man  the 
fleets  for  service  against  the  Dutch  it  was  necessary  to 
employ  the  press,  and  this  produced  very  poor  material. 
Pepys  notes  in  1666  that  men  were  pressed  in  London  that 
'were  not  liable  to  it,'  'poor  patient  labouring  men  and 
housekeepers,'^  and  he  adds  '  it  is  a  great  tyranny.'  The 
redoubtable  Commissioner  Middleton,  writing  from  Ports- 
mouth on  29  March,  1666,  tells  Pepys  that  he  is  ashamed 
to  see  such  pressed  men  as  are  sent  from  Devonshire — one 
with  the  falling  sickness  and  a  lame  arm ;  another  with  dead 
palsy  on  one  side  and  not  any  use  of  his  right  arm^  A  year 
later  he  makes  similar  complaints  from  Chatham  with  regard 
to  the  pressed  men  supplied  by  Watermen's  Hall.   'The 

1  Historical  MSS.  Commission,  Fifteenth  Report,  Appendix,  pt.  ii.,  p.  167. 

2  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  ccxcvii.  19.    Other  instances  are  given 
in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  1.  120. 

3  Diary,  i  and  2  July,  1666. 
*  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1665-6,  p.  323. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NA\^^  47 

Masters  of  Watermen's  Hall  are  good  Christians  but  very- 
knaves;  they  should  be  ordered  to  send  down  ten  or  twelve 
old  women  to  be  nurses  to  the  children  they  send.'' 

On  the  outbreak  of  the  Third  Dutch  War  in  1672  the 
same  difficulties  recurred,  but  the  complaints  are  less  fre- 
quent and  less  serious,  and  the  condition  of  things  had 
evidently  improved.  But  ships  had  still  to  be  manned  by 
pressing,  and  the  quality  of  the  pressed  men  left  much  to  be 
desired.  For  instance,  two  watermen,  pressed  in  1673,  are 
described  as  '  little  children,  and  never  at  sea  before,'  who 
could  not  be  suffered  '  to  pester  the  ship.'- 

'  It  can  never  be  well  in  the  navy,*  wrote  Pepys  on  5  Sep- 
tember, 1680,  'till  the  poor  seamen  can  be  paid  once  in  a 
year  at  furthest,  and  tickets  answered  like  bills  of  exchange; 
whereas  at  this  very  day... ships  are  kept  out  two  or  three 
years,  and  four  of  them  just  now  ordered  forth  again  only 
for  want  of  money,  after  being  brought  in  to  be  paid  off.'-'' 
A  little  later  he  notes  the  effect  of  this  upon  discipline*,  and 
comments  on  the  'unreasonable  hardship'  entailed  by  'the 
general  practice  of  our  navy  '  '  of  paying  those  ships  off  first 
where  the  least  sum  clears  the  most  men;  those  who  have 
served  longest,  and  therefore  need  their  pay  most,  being 
postponed  to  those  who  have  served  least,''  In  a  maturer 
reflection  made  after  his  retirement,  dated  December,  1692, 

'  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1667-8,  p.  xv.  As  late  as  1742 
Captain  John  Hamilton  reports  the  pressing  of  a  lime-burner  who  was  nearly 
blind,  and  'a  little  old  cobbler  of  56,  taken  out  of  his  stall  rather  it  should 
seem  for  a  pastime  than  service  ' ;  and  letters  of  1747  shew  that  the  pressing  of 
mere  lads,  or  of  persons  not  able-bodied,  was  a  subject  of  '  general  and  constant 
complaint'  (Public  Record  Office,  Caf tains'  Letters,  H  12;  Secretary's  Let- 
ters, 3).  In  1864  or  1865  a  'man'  who  weighed  70  lbs.  was  sent  on  board  the 
Prime  Consort  at  Spithead. 

*  13  April,  1673:  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  LI,  cccxliii.  141.  See  also 
Calendar  0/ State  Papers,  Domestic,  1673,  p.  228. 

'  Pepysian  .MSS.,  No.  2866,  Naval  Minutes,  p.  24. 

♦  Lb.  p.  39.  »  Lb.  p.  71. 


48  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

Pepys  still  places  the  '  length  and  badness  of  the  payment 
of  the  seaman's  wages '  first  among  his  '  discouragements.' 
This,  together  with  *  their  ill-usage  from  commanders,  and 
want  of  permission  to  help  themselves  in  intervals  of  public 
service  by  a  temporary  liberty  of  earning  a  penny  in  the 
merchant's '  are  *  discouragements  that  I  cannot  think  any- 
thing can  be  proposed  of  temptations  of  other  kinds  sufficient 
to  reconcile  them  to.'^  Nevertheless,  Pepys  claimed  credit 
for  more  punctual  payments  for  the  Special  Commission  of 
1686,  during  the  time  they  held  office.  '  Not  a  penny  left  un- 
paid,' he  writes,  '  to  any  officer,  seaman,  workman,  artificer, 
or  merchant,  for  any  service  done  in,  or  commodity  delivered 
to  the  use  of  the  Navy,  either  at  sea  or  on  shore,  within  the 
whole  time  of  this  Commission,  where  the  party  claiming 
the  same  was  in  the  way  to  receive  it.'^ 

In  connexion  with  the  seamen  something  should  be  said 
about  the  organisation  for  the  care  of  the  sick  and  wounded. 
The  credit  of  being  the  first  English  Government  to  recog- 
nise the  obligation  of  providing  for  the  sick  and  wounded 
belongs  to  the  Commonwealth.  The  principle  that  the  State 
should  provide  for  those  who  had  suffered  in  its  service  was 
laid  down  by  the  Long  Parliament  in  1642,  and  an  attempt 
was  made  to  apply  it  to  the  case  of  soldiers  wounded  in  the 
Civil  War^  A  little  later  the  same  principle  was  applied  to 
seamen,  and  the  idea  and  the  machinery  were  taken  over  by 
the  Restoration  statesmen.  In  October,  1664,  in  view  of  the 
impending  war  with  the  Dutch,  a  temporary  Commission 
for  the  care  of  Sick  and  Wounded  Seamen  on  the  model  of 
the  Commission  of  1653  was  appointed  for  the  duration  of 
the  war,  the  most  active  member  of  it  being  John  Evelyn, 


^  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2866,  Naval  Minutes,  p.  2 87. 
2  Alemoires  of  the  Royal  Navy  (Oxford  reprint),  p.  80. 
*  C.  H.  Firth,  CromweWs  Army,  ch.  ix. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  49 

the  diarist'.    This  Commission  was  re-appointed  in  March, 
1672,  for  the  Third  Dutch  War,  and  the  elaborate  instruc- 
tions given  to  it  are  to  be  found  in  the  volume  of  Naval 
Precedents  in  the  Pepysian  Library-.    The  Commissioners 
were  to  distribute  the  sick  and  wounded  among  the  hospitals 
of  England,  'thereby  to  ease  his  Majesty's  charge';  and  as 
soon  as  this  accommodation  was  exhausted,  they  were  to 
billet  them  upon  private  persons  at  the  King's  expense. 
London,  Yarmouth,  Ipswich,  Southwold,  Aldeburgh,  Har- 
wich, Chatham,  Gravesend,  Deal,  Dover,  Gosport,  Southamp- 
ton, Weymouth,  Dartmouth,  and  Plymouth  were  specially 
assigned  for  the  reception  of  sick  and  wounded  men  set 
ashore  from  their  ships.    At  these  '  places  of  reception '  as 
they  were  called,  the  Commissioners  were  to  appoint  an 
agent,  and  to  provide  *  a  physician  (if  need  be)  and  chirur- 
geon.  and  nurses,  fire,  candle,  linen,  medicaments,  and  all 
things  necessary,'  but  in  '  as  husbandly  and  thrifty  a  manner ' 
as  might  be.    The  Commission  was  also  charged  with  the 
care  of  prisoners  of  war,  and  was  instructed  to  provide  for 
their  maintenance  on  a  scale  '  not  exceeding  ^d.  per  diem 
for  every  common  seaman  and   inferior  officer,  and   \2d. 
per  diem  for  every  commission  officer.'    For  a  time  also  it 
was  concerned  with   awarding  gratuities  to  the  '  widows, 
children,  and  impotent  parents  of  such  as  shall  be  slain  in 
his  Majesty's  service  at  sea';  but  in  1673  these  duties  were 
taken  over  by  another  commission,  for  Widows  and  Orphans, 
and  a  regular  scale  was  established  on  which  gratuities  were 
to  be  given.    Widows  of  men  slain  in  the  service  were  to 
receive  a  gratuity  equal  to  eleven  months  of  their  husband's 
pay,  an  additional  third  being  allowed  to  each  orphan  except 
those  who  were  married  at  the  time  of  the  father's  death. 
If  the  deceased  left  no  widow,  his  mother  was  to  receive  the 

'   Evelyn's  Diary  (ed.  Austin  Dobson),  ii.  218. 
2  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  pp.  537-53. 

T.  4 


50  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

bounty,  provided  that  she  was  herself  a  widow,  indigent,  and 
over  50  years  of  age.  The  bounty  to  a  child  was  to  be  allowed 
to  accumulate  until  it  was  of  an  age  to  be  apprenticed.  This 
Commission  terminated  at  the  end  of  the  war,  and  by  an 
order  of  21  December,  1674,  its  functions  devolved  on  the 
Navy  Board. 

These  arrangements  were  all  admirable  upon  paper,  and 
the  members  of  the  Commissions  displayed  indefatigable  in- 
dustry, but  in  this  department  of  affairs  as  in  others  the  best 
of  schemes  were  wrecked  on  the  rock  of  finance.  On  30  Sep- 
tember, 1665,  Evelyn  wrote  that  he  had  5000  sick,  wounded, 
and  prisoners  dying  for  want  of  bread  and  shelter,  '  His 
Majesty's  subjects,'  he  adds,  '  die  in  our  sight  and  at  our 
thresholds  without  our  being  able  to  relieve  them,  which, 
with  our  barbarous  exposure  of  the  prisoners  to  the  utmost 
of  sufferings,  must  needs  redound  to  his  Majesty's  great  dis- 
honour, and  to  the  consequence  of  losing  the  hearts  of  our 
own  people,  who  are  ready  to  execrate  and  stone  us  as  we 
pass.'^  On  5  June,  1672,  the  same  loyal  and  humane  gentle- 
man wrote  in  a  similar  strain  from  Rochester :  '  I  have  near 
600  sick  and  wounded  men  in  this  place,  200  prisoners,  and 
the  apprehension  of  hundreds  more.... I  hope  there  will  be 
care  to  supply  my  district  here  with  moneys,  or  else  I  shall 
be  very  miserable,  for  no  poor  creature  does  earn  his  bread 
with  greater  anxiety  than  I  at  present.' ^  The  moneys  did 
not  come,  and  by  the  end  of  the  summer  some  of  the  locali- 
ties were  becoming  restive  at  the  non-payment  of  arrears. 
There  was  a  great  deal  of  noise  made  at  Gravesend  when 
the  Commissioners  of  the  Navy  passed  by,  and  on  27  August 
Evelyn  wrote  to  Pepys :  '  Those  cursed  people  of  Gravesend 
have  no  bowels,  and  swear  that  they  will  receive  not  a  man 

1  State  Papers,  Dojnestic,  Charles  II,  cxxxiii.  63;  see  also  Calendar  of  State 
Papers,  Domestic,  1666-7,  P-  398- 

2  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1672,  p.  157. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  51 

more  till  their  arrears  are  discharged.  We  are  above  ;^2000 
indebted  in  Kent,  where  our  dail)-  charge  is  ;^ioo  for 
quarters  only.  Judge  b}-  this  how  comfortable  a  station  I 
am  in.'* 

When  the  war  came  to  an  end  the  temporary  Commission 
was  withdrawn,  and  by  a  warrant  from  the  Lords  of  the 
Admiralty  dated  28  March,  1674,  its  duties  were  handed 
over  to  James  Pearse,  '  chirurgeon-general  of  his  Majesty's 
navy.'-  Pearse  was  a  man  of  business  after  Pepys's  own 
heart,  and  he  carefully  systematised  the  whole  of  his  func- 
tions, reducing  them  '  into  such  a  method  that  it  is  not 
possible  for  me  (or  whomsoever  shall  succeed  me)  to  wrong- 
his  Majesty  or  injure  his  subjects.'^ 

'  Mariners  and  soldiers  maimed  in  his  Majesty's  service  at 
sea '  were  entitled  to  relief  out  of  the  Chest  at  Chatham,  a 
fund  provided  by  deducting  6rt'.  a  month  from  each  man's  pay. 
Fourpence  a  month  was  also  deducted  for  the  maintenance 
of  a  chaplain,  and  Pepys  explains  how  the  Chest  benefited 
from  an  arrangement  by  which  all  moneys  were  also  assigned 
to  it  '  arising  out  of  the  seamen's  contributions  for  a  chap- 
lain upon  ships  where  (by  the  remissness  or  impiety  of  the 
commander)  no  chaplain  is  provided.'^  A  paper  of  24  July, 
I685^  gives  the  scale  of  this  relief: 

A  leg  or  arm  lost  is  /6.  13.  4.  paid  as  present  relief,  and 
so  much  settled  as  an  annual  pension  for  his  life- 
time      i^6  13     4 

If  two  legs  be  lost  his  pension  is  doubled  .         .         .     ^13     6     8 

'  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  cccxxviii.  114. 

*  Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  xi.  106. 

'  lb.  xi.  pp.  103-110,  where  Pearse's  report  of  September,  1687,  giving  an 
account  of  the  reforms  effected  by  him  during  his  long  tenure  of  office,  is  pasted 
into  the  volume.  The  substance  of  this  is  printed  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS., 

••  '37- 

*  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  205. 

*  Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  vi.  71. 


52  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

For  the  loss  of  two  arms,  in  consideration  of  his  being 
thereby  rendered  uncapable  of  getting  a  livelihood 
any  other  way,  per  annum .         .         .         .         .         .     ^15     o     o 

But  if  an  arm  be  on,  and  disabled  only,  is  ^5  per  annum  ^500 
An  eye  lost  is  £4  per  annum     ......      ^4    o    o 

...And  where  any  wound  or  hurt  occasions  a  fracture,  contusion,  im- 
postumation,  or  the  like,  under  the  loss  of  a  limb,  such  are  viewed  by 
the  chirurgeons,  and  certified  to  deserve  what  in  their  opinions  may  be 
a  proportionable  reward  in  full  satisfaction.  And  these  sorts  of  hurts 
frequently  accompany  the  loss  of  a  limb  in  other  parts  of  the  body,  for 
which  they  have  a  reward  apart  from  their  annual  allowance,  according 
to  the  chirurgeon's  discretion. 

•  One  more  question  remains  for  our  consideration  to-day — 
that  of  the  rates  of  pay  in  the  navy  during  the  period  1660-88. 
As  far  as  the  rates  themselves  were  concerned  the  story 
is  one  of  steady  improvement.  In  1653  the  pay  of  a  general 
or  admiral  of  the  fleet  had  been  ;^3  a  day  during  his  em- 
ployment ;  of  a  vice-admiral,  £2 ;  and  of  a  rear-admiral,  £1^. 
The  scale  adopted  by  Order  in  Council,  26  February,  1666^, 
raised  the  admiral's  pay  from  ;^3  to  £4;  the  vice-admiral's 
from  £2  to  £2.  los.;  and  the  rear-admiral's  from  £1  to  £2. 
The  vice-admiral  of  a  squadron  only  was  to  get  30^-.  and  the 
rear-admiral  of  a  squadron  £1.  The  pay  of  the  other  officers 
was  not  increased  beyond  the  rates  fixed  in  1653^  The  able 
seamen  in  1660  received  245-.  a  month ;  the  ordinary  seamen, 
igs.;  the  apprentices  or  'gromets,'  14s.  ^d.;  and  the  'boys,' 
9^.  6d.  The  wages  of  the  carpenter,  boatswain,  and  gunner 
varied  from  £2  to  £4  a  month  according  to  the  rate  of  the 
ship.  Monthly  wages  in  harbour,  as  distinguished  from  sea 
wages,  were  on  a  lower  scaled    In  1686  a  new  establishment 

^  S/a/e  Papers,  Domestic,  Interr.  xxxii.  39. 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Precedents,  p.  217". 

^  A  table  of  these  rates  is  given  in  Oppenheim,  p.  360. 

*  See  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  488,  King  James  IPs  Pocket  Book  of  Rates  and 
Memorandums.  Tables  of  harbour  and  rigging  wages  taken  from  this  source 
are  printed  in  Catalogue  0/  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  141. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  53 

of  wages'  made  a  few  minor  changes,  but  the  pay  of  the 
seamen  was  not  affected  thereby. 

The  misfortune  of  the  'poor  seaman'  was  not  that  his 
rate  of  pay  was  insufficient,  but  that  he  could  not  get  his 
money,  or  if  he  got  it  at  all  it  was  in  the  depreciated  paper 
currency  known  as  the  '  ticket.'  A  ticket  was  a  certificate 
from  the  officers  of  his  ship,  issued  to  each  seaman,  speci- 
fying the  term  and  quality  of  his  service.  This,  when 
countersigned  by  the  Navy  Board,  was  the  seaman's  war- 
rant for  demanding  his  wages  from  the  Treasurer  of  the 
Navy  on  shore.  The  original  purpose  of  tickets  was  to  save 
the  necessity  of  transporting  large  sums  of  money  on  board 
ship,  but  the  want  of  funds  in  the  navy  soon  made  it  the 
regular  practice  to  treat  tickets  as  inconvertible  paper,  and 
to  discharge  all  seamen  with  tickets  instead  of  money — or 
with  money  for  part  of  their  time  and  a  ticket  for  the  rest. 
Theoretically,  the  ticket  should  have  supplied  the  seaman 
with  credit  almost  up  to  the  full  amount  of  his  wages,  but 
in  practice  the  long  waiting  and  uncertainty  of  payment 
caused  a  great  depreciation  of  tickets.  We  hear  of  women 
brokers  standing  about  the  Navy  Office,  offering  to  help 
seamen  who  might  have  tickets  to  ready  money — but  always 
upon  terms.  They  took  them  to  Mrs  Salesbury  in  Carpen- 
ter's Yard,  near  Aldgate,  who  bought  them  for  cash  at  a  dis- 
count of  at  least  55.  in  the  £,  and  sometimes  more-.  This 
caused  great  discontent  among  the  seamen,  who  naturally 
objected  to  being  paid  by  the  State  in  depreciated  paper, 
and  on  13  February,  1667,  Pepys  records  in  the  Diary  that 
'  there  was  a  very  great  disorder  this  day  at  the  Ticket 
Office,  to  the  beating  and  bruising  of  the  face '  of  one  Car- 

'  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Precedents,  pp.  195-6.    This  new  table 
of  wages  is  printed  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  150. 

2  Catalogue  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1666-7,  p.  426;  see  also /*.  1665-6, 

P-  75- 


54  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

casse,  the  clerk.  The  grievance  attracted  attention,  and  in 
1667  the  House  of  Commons  enquired  into  '  the  buying  and 
selhng  of  tickets.'^  The  '  infinite  great  disorder' of  the  Ticket 
Office  also  attracted  the  notice  of  the  Commissioners  of 
Public  Accounts^,  but  the  reply  of  the  Navy  Board  when 
invited  to  justify  the  practice  was  conclusive.  '  We  conceive 
the  use  of  tickets  to  be  by  no  other  means  removable  than 
by  a  supply  of  money  in  every  place,  at  all  times,  in  readiness 
where  and  when... any... occasions  of  discharging  seamen 
shall  arise.''' 

Apart  from  the  disastrous  results  of  the  practice  of  issuing 
tickets  without  money  to  pay  them,  the  actual  machinery  of 
the  system  was  better  under  Charles  II  than  it  had  hitherto 
been.  Printed  tickets  with  counterfoils  had  been  invented 
under  the  Commonwealth,and  were  in  use  as  early  as  August, 
1654^;  but  in  1667  elaborate  instructions  for  the  examining 
and  signing  of  tickets  and  comparing  them  with  the  coun- 
terfoils were  issued  by  the  Navy  Board  to  protect  the  Office 
against  fraud ^  John  Hollond  complains  of  the  abuses  to 
which  even  a  solvent  ticket  system  gave  rise.  It  enabled 
'  wrong  parties  '  to  secure  the  seaman's  wages — these  being 
'such  as  have  wrought  upon  the  advantage  of  the  men's 
necessities  ' — '  either  pursers,  clerks  of  the  check,  or  creditors, 
whether  alehouse-keepers,  or  slopsellers,  or  else  pretended 
sweethearts.'^  He  also  notes  the  facilities  which  the  system 
afforded  for  the  abuse  of  '  dead  pays,'  tickets  being  issued 
for  seamen  who  were  dead  or  who  never  served,  and  men 
suborned  to  personate  them  at  the  pay-table''.  This  was 
particularly  easy  in   time  of  war,  when    the   pressure   of 

^  Diary,  13  November,  1667. 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  vi.  465-80. 

^  Penn,  Memorials  of  Sir  William  Penn,  ii.  509. 

*  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1654,  p.  548. 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2554. 

®  Discourses,  p.  129  and  nn.  ">  lb.  p.  140. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  55 

business  was  too  great  to  allow  of  the  tickets  being  properly 
examined. 

A  new  and  important  principle  in  connexion  with  the  pa}' 
of  naval  officers  was  established  in  1668.  Deane  had  urtred 
in  1653  that  seamen  should  be  entered  for  continuous  service 
and  kept  on  continuous  pay  like  soldiers \  but  the  practice 
of  the  navy  was  quite  different,  both  for  officers  and  men. 
Hitherto  it  had  been  usual  to  regard  naval  officers  as  ap- 
pointed for  particular  services,  and  possessing  no  claim  upon 
the  Government  when  these  services  had  been  discharered. 
The  result  of  this  was  that,  except  in  time  of  war,  the  field 
of  employment  was  far  too  small,  and  a  number  of  good 
officers  were  thrown  upon  their  own  resources.  But  at  the 
close  of  the  Second  Dutch  War  the  Government  formally 
recognised  for  the  first  time  the  claims  of  officers  to  pay  in 
time  of  peace.  The  first  step  did  not  go  far,  but  the  principle 
now  accepted  was  destined  to  lead  to  the  modern  system  of 
continuous  employment.  By  an  Order  in  Council  of  17  July. 
1668-,  it  was  provided  that,  in  consideration  of  '  the  eminent 
services  performed  in  the  late  war  against  the  Dutch  by  the 
flag  officers,'  and  the  fact  that  '  during  the  time  of  peace 
several  of  them  are  out  of  employment,  and  thereby  disabled 
to  support  themselves  in  a  condition  answerable  to  their 
merits  and  those  marks  of  honour  his  Majesty  hath  conferred 
on  them,'  they  should  receive  '  pensions  '  in  proportion  to  the 
scale  of  pay  on  active  service  which  had  been  fi.xed  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war.  These  '  pensions  '  ranged  from  ;i^i50 
a  year  for  captains  of  flag-ships  up  to  ;^2  5o  a  year  for  rear- 
admirals  and  vice-admirals  of  fleets '.  By  an  Order  of  26  June, 
1674,  the  same  scale  was  established  for  flag  officers  who 

'  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  xiv.  257. 

*  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Precedents,  p.  477.  There  is  a  reference 
to  this  in  the  Diary,  6  July,  1668.  Sir  William  Coventry  was  against  it,  and 
Pepys  agreed  with  him. 

^  The  scale  is  given  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  145 


56         SAMUEL  PEPYS  AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY 

had  served  in  the  Third  Dutch  War^;  and  in  1674  and  1675 
the  system  of  half-pay  for  officers  when  they  were  not  being 
actually  employed  was  further  extended  to  the  captains  and 
masters  of  first  and  second  rate  ships  who  had  served  in  the 
war^  and  to  the  commanders  of  squadrons^ 

In  1672^  another  important  change  relating  to  pay  was 
made  by  the  Council.  The  principle  of  pensions  on  super- 
annuation was  adopted  for  officers.  These  were  to  be  '  equal 
to  the  salary  and  known  allowances  they  enjoyed,'  provided 
that  they  had  completed  fifteen  years  of  service  '  where  the 
employment  is  constant,  such  as  that  of  boatswains,  gunners, 
pursers,  carpenters,  &c.,'  or  eight  years  where  it  is  not  con- 
stant, 'such  as  that  of  masters,  chirurgeons,  &c.'  In  1673-^ 
the  principle  of  superannuation  was  extended  from  cases  of 
old  age  to  officers  wounded  in  service  at  sea.  Such  officers 
were  to  receive  one  year's  wages,  '  and  the  continuance  of 
them  in  pay  during  the  whole  time  they  shall  by  good  proof 
appear  to  have  lain  under  cure.' 

^  Naval  Precedents,  p.  ^21. 

^  Order  in  Council  of  6  May,  1674  {Naval  Precedents,  p.  164 ;  see  also  p.  ■259). 
The  substance  of  the  Order  is  given  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  146. 

^  Order  in  Council,  19  May,  1675  {Naval Precedents,  p.  165).  The  substance 
of  the  Order  is  given  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  147. 

*  Order  in  Council,  6  December,  1672  {Naval  Precedents,  p.  iq8). 

^  Order  in  Council,  6  June,  1673  {Naval  Precedents,  p.  2  r8).  There  is  another 
copy  in  Miscellanies,  vi.  67.  For  subsequent  extensions  of  the  Order,  in  1673 
and  1674,  see  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  AISS.,  i.  148-9. 


LECTURE   IV 

VICTUALLING;  DISCIPLINE;  SHIPS;  GUNS 

The  arrangements  for  victualling  had  always  had  an  im- 
portant bearing  upon  the  contentment  and  efficiency  of  the 
seamen.  '  However  the  pay  of  the  mariners,  both  for  sea  and 
harbour,  may  be  wanting  for  some  time,'  wrote  one  of  the 
Victuallers,  '  yet  they  must  have  continual  supplies  of  vic- 
tuals, otherwise  they  will  be  apt  to  fall  into  very  great 
disorders.''  Pepys,  in  his  private  Minute  Book'-,  makes  the 
same  point.  '  Englishmen,'  he  says,  '  and  more  especially 
seamen,  love  their  bellies  above  anything  else,  and  therefore 
it  must  alwaj-s  be  remembered,  in  the  management  of  the 
victualling  of  the  nav)',  that  to  make  any  abatement  from 
them  in  the  quantity  or  agreeableness  of  the  victuals,  is  to 
discourage  and  provoke  them  in  the  tenderest  point,  and 
will  sooner  render  them  disgusted  with  the  King's  service 
than  any  one  other  hardship  that  can  be  put  upon  them.' 
But  in  this  department  also  the  want  of  money  had  fatal 
effects,  and  contributed  more  than  any  other  cause  to  the 
comparative  failure  of  the  administration  to  provide  victuals 
of  good  quality,  sufficient  quantity,  and  promptly  delivered 
where  they  were  required. 

Before  the  Restoration  the  victualling  was  being  managed 
by  Victualling  Commissioners  '  upon  account,'  the  State 
keeping  the  business  in  its  own  hands^  But  the  system  had 
scarcely  a  fair  trial   owing  to  financial   embarrassments*, 

1  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  //,  ccxcix.  1 1 1 . 

3  Hollond,  Discourses,  pp.  124,  154. 
*  Oppenhcim,  p.  326. 


58  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

and  just  before  the  King's  return  matters  were  as  bad  as 
they  could  well  be\  The  restored  Government  reverted  to 
the  older  system  of  contract,  and  in  September,  1660,  Denis 
Gauden  was  appointed  contractor  under  the  satisfying  title 
of  '  surveyor-general  of  all  victuals  to  be  provided  for  his 
Majesty's  ships  and  maritime  causes,'  with  a  fee  of  ^^50  a 
year,  and  Sd.  a  day  for  a  clerk  2.  The  whole  burden  of  the 
victualling  therefore  rested  upon  a  single  man,  and  when 
the  war  with  the  Dutch  broke  out,  he  was  unable  to  grapple 
with  its  demands ;  yet  no  fundamental  change  could  be  made 
in  the  system  until  the  Government  was  in  a  position  to 
settle  accounts  with  him.  Thus  the  victuals,  although  on  the 
whole  good  in  quality,  were  deficient  in  quantity,  and  when 
Gauden  was  remonstrated  with  he  could  always  reply,  and 
generally  with  perfect  truth,  that  it  was  impossible  for  him 
to  do  better  as  long  as  the  Government  failed  to  carry  out 
their  part  of  the  contract,  and  to  make  payments  on  account 
at  the  stipulated  times ^  In  the  spring  of  1665,  when  the 
fleet  was  fitting  for  sea,  complaints  of  the  failure  of  the  Vic- 
tualler were  frequents  Later  on,  when  Pepys  went  down  to 
visit  the  fleet  in  September,  Lord  Sandwich  told  him  that 
most  of  the  ships  had  been  without  beer  '  these  three  weeks 
or  month,  and  but  few  days'  dry  provisions.'^  In  this  year 
complaints  of  uneatable  provisions  occur,  though  not  often, 
but  when  they  were  bad  they  were  sometimes  very  bad.  On 
10  August,  Commissioner  Middleton  wrote  to  Pepys  from 
Portsmouth  that  the  Coventry  was  still  in  port;  her  beer 
had  nearly  poisoned  one  man,  who  '  being  thirsty  drank  a 


^  Oppenheim,  p.  327. 

^  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  Docquet  Book,  p.  46. 
^  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1665-6,  p.  xxxix.    See  also  pp.  23,  27, 
55,  203. 
*  lb.  1664-S,  pp.  306,  311,  317,  321,  382. 
^  Diary,  18  September,  1665. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  59 

great  draught.'^  Probably  now,  as  undoubtedly  later,  the 
backwardness  of  the  victualling  in  turn  reacted  upon  the 
deficiency  of  men,  for  the  sailors  deserted  from  ships  where 
they  could  get  no  food-. 

The  practical  breakdown  of  the  victualling  system  during 
the  spring  and  summer  of  1665  led  to  the  establishment,  at 
Pepys's  suggestion,  of  new  machinery  for  keeping  the  Vic- 
tualler up  to  the  mark — a  Surveyor  of  Victuals  appointed 
at  the  King's  charge  in  each  port,  with  power  to  examine 
the  Victualler's  books;  and  a  central  officer  in  London  to 
whom  they  were  to  report  weekly  ^  As  soon  as  Pepys's  plan 
was  adopted,  he  wrote  to  suggest  that  he  himself  should  be 
the  new  Surveyor-General  of  Victualling\  and  on  27  October 
he  accepted  office'^  at  a  salary  of  ;i^300  a  year^  The  ap- 
pointment was  temporary  only,  and  came  to  an  end  at  the 
conclusion  of  peace.  While  it  lasted  it  effected  a  slight  im- 
provement. Pepys  himself  was  much  pleased  with  the  suc- 
cess of  his  arrangements,  and  he  was  complimented  upon 
them  by  the  Duke  of  Yorkl  As  he  had  iJ"500  a  year  from 
Gauden  as  well  as  the  ;^3CX)  from  the  King-,  he  managed  to 
do  well  out  of  the  war. 

The  experience  of  the  war  had  shewn  the  weak  points  of 
the  one-man  system,  and  in  subsequent  contracts  several 
Victuallers  were  associated  in  a  kind  of  partnership",  but  the 
fundamental  difficulty  was  one  of  finance,  and  this  a  mere 
multiplication  of  persons  did  little  to  meet.  Thus  there 
are  complaints  in   1671"',  and  the  difficulties  were  greatly 

^  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  cxxviii.  85 ;  see  also  Calendar  of  State 
Papers,  Domestic,  1664-5,  p.  480. 

-  Calendar  0/  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1667-8,  p.  xviii. 

*  lb.  1665-6,  p.  7;  see  also  p.  ii,  and  Diary,  14  Octuher,  1665. 

*  Diary,  19  October,  1665. 

»  lb.  27  October,  1665.  '  lb.  l\  October,  1665. 

">  lb.  26  July,  1666.  *  lb.  4  June,  1667. 

*  See  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  155.  "  See  ib.  i.  156-7. 


6o  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

increased  when  the  Third  Dutch  War  broke  out  in  the  spring 
of  1 672.  The  Victuallers  received  such  scanty  payments  from 
the  Government  that  they  had  to  carry  on  the  service  with 
their  own  money  and  credit^  and  eventually  their  condition 
in  respect  of  funds  became  '  so  exceeding  strait '  that  they 
could  not  make  proper  deliveries^  This  provoked  the  com- 
manders at  sea  to  take  the  field  against  them,  and  Prince 
Rupert  was  so  annoyed  that  he  declared  that  he  would  never 
thrive  at  sea  till  some  were  hanged  on  land^;  and  a  little 
later  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  only  way  to  deal  with 
the  Victuallers  would  be  to  send  one  of  them  on  shipboard, 
there  to  stay  in  what  condition  his  Majesty  shall  think  fitting, 
till  they  have  thoroughly  victualled  the  fleef*. 

It  is,  on  the  whole,  to  the  credit  of  the  Victuallers  that  the 
complaints  as  to  quality  are  not  more  numerous  than  they 
are  during  this  period  of  large  demands  and  scanty  pay- 
ment. If  you  would  care  for  illustrations,  on  1 5  March,  167 1 , 
on  board  the  Reserve  'there  was  a  general  complaint  amongst 
the  seamen,  both  of  the  badness  of  the  meat  and  want  of 
weight.'^  On  6  September,  1672,  there  was  a  protest  from 
the  Gloucester  against  the  badness  of  the  beer ;  but  the  Vic- 
tuallers replied  rather  ambiguously  that  their  beer  was  as 
good  as  ever  was  used  in  the  fleet,  and  they  counted  them- 
selves happy  in  that  they  had  been  afflicted  with  less  bad 
beer  'by  many  degrees  than  ever  was  in  such  an  action.'® 
On  29  September  the  commander  of  the  Augustine  wrote 
to  say  that  the  doctor  attributed  the  sickness  among  his 

^  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Do7nestic,  1671-2,  pp.  66,  498. 

2  lb.  1672,  p.  484.  For  other  references  see  pp.  31,  98,  106,  124,  453;  and 
ib.  1673,  p.  72. 

^  Ib.  1673,  p.  xi. 

*  Ib.  1673,  p.  384. 

^  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  ccxcvii.  36.  See  also  Calendar  of  State 
Papers,  Domestic,  167 1,  p.  135. 

^  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  cccxxix.  11. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  6i 

men  to  the  extreme  badness  of  the  beer^ ;  while  objection  was 
also  taken  to  an  untimely  dispensation  of  rotten  cheesed 

The  victualling  contract  of  which  we  possess  the  fullest 
details  was  that  of  3 1  December,  1677^.  From  this  it  appears 
that  the  daily  allowance  of  each  man  was  'one  pound  aver- 
dupois  of  good,  clean,  sweet,  sound,  well-bolted  with  a  horse- 
cloth, well-baked,  and  well-conditioned  wheaten  biscuit;  one 
gallon,  wine  measure,  of  beer '...'two  pounds  averdupois  of 
beef,  killed  and  made  up  with  salt  in  England,  of  a  well-fed 
ox... for  Sunda}'s,  Mondays,  Tuesdays,  and  Thursdays  ' — or, 
instead  of  beef,  for  two  of  those  days  one  pound  averdupois 
of  bacon,  or  salted  English  pork,  of  a  well-fed  hog... and  a 
pint  of  pease  (Winchester  measure)  therewith'...;  'and  for 
Wednesdays,  Fridays,  and  Saturdays,  every  man,  besides 
the  aforesaid  allowance  of  bread  and  beer,  to  have  by  the 
day  the  eighth  part  of  a  full-sized  North  Sea  cod  of  24  inches 
long,  or  a  sixth  part  of  ahaberdine  22  inches  long,or  a  quarter 
part  of  the  same  sort  if  but  16  inches  long. .  .or  a  pound  aver- 
dupois of  well-savoured  Poor  John,  together  with  two  ounces 
of  butter,  and  four  ounces  of  Suffolk  cheese,  or  two-thirds 
of  that  weight  of  Cheshire.'  The  contract  provides  for  Eng- 
lish beef  because  there  was  a  strong  prejudice  in  the  navy 
against  Irish  beef  Pepys  quotes  one  writer  as  saying  '  The 
Irish  meat  is  very  unwholesome,  as  well  as  lean,  and  rots 
our  men  '■*;  and  John  Hollond  argues  that  to  serve  Irish  beef 
was  greatly  to  discourage  the  seamen^  '  Haberdine'  is  salt 
or  sun-dried  cod,  and  '  Poor  John  '  is  salted  or  dried  hake. 

1  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1672,  p.  668. 

2  lb.  1672,  p.  675.  An  interesting  discussion  of  victualling  abuses  is  contained 
in  a  paper  of  1673  or  1674,  entitled  The  Expense  and  Charge  of  his  Majesty's 
Naval  Victuals  considered  and  regulated,  by  Captain  Stephen  Fyend  or  Pine, 
who  had  Ijeen  himself  formerly  a  purser  (I'epysian  MSS.,  Miscellanies,  iii.  723). 
The  substance  of  it  is  printed  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  160-4. 

3  I'epysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Precedents,  p.  416.  The  contract  is  fully 
discussed  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysiatt  MSS.,  i.  165-177. 

♦  Fepysian  MSS.,  No.  2866,  A^dt/a/yT//«M/'<rj,  p.  146.         '•'  Discourses,^.  177. 


62  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

In  the  case  of  vessels  sailing  '  to  the  southward  of  the 
latitude  of  39  degrees  N.'  it  was  allowable  for  the  contractors 
to  vary  the  diet — '  In  lieu  of  a  pound  of  biscuit,  a  pound  of 
rusk  of  equal  fineness;  in  lieu  of  a  gallon  of  beer,  a  wine 
quart  of  beverage  wine  or  half  a  wine  pint  of  brandy... in 
lieu  of  a  piece  of  beef  or  pork  with  pease,  three  pounds  of 
flour  and  a  pound  of  raisins  (not  worse  than  Malaga),  or  in 
lieu  of  raisins,  half  a  pound  of  currants  or  half  a  pound  of 
beef  suet  pickled;  in  lieu  of  a  sized  fish,  four  pounds  of  Milan 
rice  or  two  stockfishes  of  at  least  16  inches  long;  in  lieu  of 
a  pound  of  butter  or  two  pounds  of  Suffolk  cheese,  a  wine 
pint  of  sweet  olive  oil.'   The  separate  victualling  contract  for 
the  Mediterranean^  provided  for  this  lighter  diet  there  in 
any  case ;  but  the  variation  was  not  popular  among  the  sea- 
men.   In  Captain  Boteler's  Six  Dialogues  about  Sea  Services, 
printed  in   1685   but  written  some  fifty  years  earlier,  the 
'  admiral,'  who,  having  just  been  appointed  to  the  '  high- 
admiralship,'  is  occupied  throughout  the  book  in  remedying 
an  abysmal  ignorance  of  naval  matters  by  conversation  with 
a  '  sea-captain,'  suggests  that  it  would  be  better  for  the  health 
of  the  mariners  if  the  ordinary  victualling  were  assimilated 
'  to  the  manner  of  foreign  parts.'    '  Without  doubt,  my  lord,' 
replies  the  captain,  '  our  much,  and  indeed  excessive  feeding 
upon  these  salt  meats  at  sea  cannot  but  procure  much  un- 
healthiness  and  infection,  and  is  questionless  one  main  cause 
that  our  English  are  so  subject  to  calentures,  scarbots,  and 
the  like  contagious  diseases  above  all  other  nations;  so  that 
it  were  to  be  wished  that  we  did  more  conform  ourselves,  if 
not  to  the  Spanish  and  Italian  nations,  who  live  most  upon 
rice-meal,  oatmeal,  biscake,  figs,  olives,  oil,  and  the  like,  yet 
at  the  least  to  our  neighbours  the  Dutch,  who  content  them- 
selves with  a  far  less  proportion  of  flesh  and  fish  than  we  do, 
and  instead  thereof  do  make  it  up  with  pease,  beans,  wheat- 

1  Described  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  177. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  63 

flour,  butter,  cheese,  and  those  white  meats  (as  they  are 
called).'  To  this  view  the  admiral  assents,  but  he  adds, '  The 
difficulty  consisteth  in  that  the  common  seamen  with  us  are 
so  besotted  on  their  beef  and  pork  as  they  had  rather  ad- 
venture on  all  the  calentures  and  scarbots  in  the  world  than 
to  be  weaned  from  their  customary  diet,  or  so  much  as  to  lose 
the  least  bit  of  it.'  I  should  explain  that  a  calenture  is  a  fever, 
associated  with  delirium,  to  which  sailors  in  the  tropics  were 
peculiarly  liable  ;  and  scarbot  is  the  scurvy^ 

Pepys  expected  much  from  the  new  contract  of  1677'-, 
but  the  old  complaints  of  delay  and  bad  quality  recur*,  and 
in  1683  his  successors  decided  to  abandon  contract  in  favour 
of  a  state  victualling  department  resembling  in  its  general 
character  the  s)'stem  of  victualling  '  upon  account,'^  estab- 
lished from  1655  to  the  Restoration.  If  we  may  infer  any- 
thing from  the  silence  of  the  Ad7niralty  Letters,  hitherto  so 
vocal  upon  the  subject,  this  change  of  method  resulted  in  an 
improvement  in  the  victualling  of  the  navy,  and  on  the  whole 
the  Victualling  Office  did  not  come  out  badly  under  the  test 
of  the  mobilisation  of  1688.  The  necessity  for  this  had  been 
realised  about  the  middle  of  August,  and  at  first  the  delays 
caused  a  good  deal  of  anxiety;  but  by  the  end  of  October 
Pepys  was  able  to  report  that  the  fleet  is  'now  (God  be 
thanked)  at  the  Gunfleet,  and  in  very  good  condition  there.'* 

'  '  Calentures,'  or  burning  fevers,  were  supposed  to  be  bred  by  calms.  Sir 
Walter  Ralegh  refers  to  his  own  sufferings  from  them  {Remains,  London, 
1664,  p.  223). 

'Scarbot'  is  probably  from  'scharbock,'  the  Danish  name  for  one  form  of 
scurvy  (John  Quincey,  Lexicon  Fhysico-medicum,  London,  1787);  the  modem 
Danish  term  for  scurvy  is  'skabet.'  "  See  Admiralty  Letters,  vi.  228. 

*  Instances  are  given  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  179-80. 

*  A  discussion  of  the  relative  merits  of  the  two  systems  occurs  in  Ilollond, 
Discourses,  p.  154.  The  substance  of  the  patent  of  10  December,  1683  (Naval 
Precedents,  p.  48),  which  established  the  new  department,  is  given  in  Catalogue 
of  Pepysian  MSS.,  pp.  r8o-2. 

"  Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  xv.  250  (26  Oct).  See  also  pp.  219-20, 
256-7,  284. 


64  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

There  were  still  ships  waiting  to  be  got  ready  for  sea,  but 
of  these  he  writes :  '  I  do  with  the  same  zeal  continue  to 
press  the  despatch  of  the  rest  that  are  behind  that  I  would 
do  for  my  victuals  if  I  were  hungry.'^ 

One  of  the  earlier  acts  of  the  Restoration  Gdvernment 
was  the  passing  of  a  statute  to  incorporate  into  the  system 
of  English  law  the  ordinances  already  in  force  during  the 
Interregnum  for  regulating  the  discipline  of  the  navy.  Before 
1652  such  crimes  as  murder  and  manslaughter  on  board 
ship  had  been  punishable  by  the  ordinary  law,  and  lesser 
offences  by  the  'known  orders  and  customs  of  the  seas'^; 
but  in  that  year  the  service  was  for  the  first  time  subjected 
to  articles  of  war^,  and  it  was  upon  these  that  the  provisions 
of  the  Act  of  1661^  were  founded.  By  this  commanders  at 
sea  were  empowered  to  try  a  great  variety  of  offences  by 
court-martial,  and  for  many  of  these  the  maximum  penalty 
was  death.  This  Act  continued  to  govern  the  navy  until 
the  reign  of  George  11. 

Another  Act,  of  1664',  dealt  with  two  matters  which  had 
given  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  the  Navy  Board — the  fre- 
quent embezzlement  of  naval  stores,  and  the  riots  among 
disappointed  seamen  who  could  not  get  their  pay.  Efforts 
had  been  already  made  to  prevent  embezzlement  by  adopt- 
ing special  modes  of  manufacture  for  the  King's  rope,  sails, 
and  pennants,  and  by  marking  other  stores  with  the  broad 
arrow*';  but  there  were  some  things,  such  as  nails  and  some 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  xv.  241. 

^  See  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2611,  Fenn's  Collections,  p.  95  :  '  Instructions  for 
the  Admiralty,  1647.'  These  customs  were  not  abrogated,  either  by  the  ordi- 
nances of  the  Interregnum  or  by  the  statutes  of  the  Restoration. 

^  Oppenheim,  p.  311. 

*  13  Car.  II.  c.  9.  A  summary  of  the  provisions  of  the  Act  is  given  in  Cata- 
logtie  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  184. 

®  16  Car.  II.  c.  5;  renewed  by  18  &  19  Car.  II.  c.  12. 

*  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1661-2,  p.  152. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  65 

other  kinds  of  ironwork,  which  could  not  be  thus  marked. 
Ironwork  in  particular  was  especially  favoured  by  the  depre- 
dators, because  it  could  be  so  easily  disposed  of.  In  August, 
1663,  an  illicit  storehouse  discovered  at  Deptford  for  the 
reception  of  nails,  iron  shot,  and  other  embezzled  ironwork, 
was  described  as  the  '  gulf  that  swallows  up  all  from  any 
place  brought  to  him.'^  The  riots  also  had  been  a  serious 
matter.  The  preamble  of  the  Act  gives  as  the  ground  of 
legislation  '  diverse  fightings,  quarrellings,  and  disturbances 
...in  and  about  his  Majesty's  offices,  yards,  and  stores,'  and 
'  frequent  differences  and  disorders'  which  had  occurred  on 
pay-days  through  '  the  unreasonable  turbulency  of  seamen.' 
To  meet  this  state  of  things  the  Act  invests  the  Navy  Board 
with  some  of  the  powers  of  magistrates,  and  authorises  them 
to  punish  riots  and  embezzlements  with  fine  and  imprison- 
ment. 

The  Act  was  useful,  but  it  did  not  entirely  stop  embezzle- 
ment. In  September,  1666,  a  prize  worth ;^3C)0  was  plundered 
of  her  lading,  and  '  will  soon,'  we  are  told,  '  be  dismantled  of 
all  her  rigging,  till  she  will  not  have  a  rope's  end  left  to  hang 
herself,  or  the  thievish  seamen  that  go  in  her.'^  Chatham 
Harbour  had  always  been  '  miserably  infested  '  with  '  thieves 
and  pilfering  rogues,'*  and  in  February,  1668,  the  clerk  of 
the  check  wrote,  *  our  people's  hands  are  of  late  so  inured  to 
stealing,  that  if  the  sawyers  leave  any  work  in  the  pits  half 
cut,  it's  a  hazard  whether  they  find  it  in  the  morning.'*  The 
state  of  things  complained  of  was  partly  due  to  the  uncer- 
tainty of  pay.  As  far  as  the  riots  of  seamen  were  concerned, 
the  Act  was  a  failure,  as  for  their  grievances  force  was  no 


'   Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1663-4,  p.  I49. 
2  Ih.  1666-7,  p.  148. 

'  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  ccxvii.  138. 

*  lb.  ccxxxv.   135.    See  also  Caletular  0/  State  Papers,  Domestic,   1668-9, 
PP-  '7'.  303;  '^-  '67'.  PP-  ."3'  .=  24- 

T.  5 


66  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

remedy.  Pepys  writes  on  4  November,  1665  \  when  the  Act 
of  1664  was  in  full  operation,  'After  dinner  I  to  the  Office 
and  there  late,  and  much  troubled  to  have  a  hundred  seamen 
all  the  afternoon  there,  swearing  below  and  cursing  us,  and 
breaking  the  glass  windows,  and  swear  they  will  pull  the 
house  down  on  Tuesday  next.  I  sent  word  of  this  to  Court, 
but  nothing  will  help  it  but  money  and  a  rope,' 

The  period  of  Pepys's  first  Secretaryship  witnessed  several 
attempts  to  effect  an  improvement  in  naval  discipline.  Abuses 
connected  with  the  unlimited  number  of  cabins  built  on  the 
King'sships,  leading  to  'the  pesteringof  the  ship,"  contracting 
of  sickness,'  temptation  to  officers  'to  neglect  their  duties  and 
mis-spend  their  time  in  drinking  and  debauchery,'  and  '  the 
danger  of  fire,'  led  to  the  adoption,  on  16  October,  1673,  of 
a  regular  establishment  of  cabins  for  ships  of  each  rate^. 

Another  abuse  of  long  standing  had  been  the  taking  of 
merchants'  goods  in  the  King's  ships.  Sir  Robert  Slyngesbie 
had  observed  in  his  Discourse^  in  1660  that  this  made  it  easy 
for  the  officers  to  sell  the  King's  stores  under  the  pretence 
that  they  were  merchandise;  to  waste  time  in  the  ports 
which  ought  to  have  been  spent  at  sea;  and  so  to  fill  the 
ship's  hold  '  that  they  have  no  room  to  throw  by  their  chests 
and  other  cumbersome  things  upon  occasion  of  fight,  whereby 
the  gun  decks  are  so  encumbered  that  they  cannot  possibly 
make  so  good  an  opposition  to  an  enemy  as  otherwise  they 
might';  and,  lastly,  to  defraud  the  custom-house.  In  1674 
Pepys  took  the  matter  up,  and  induced  the  King  to  take 
severe   notice  of  the  offenders^  and    in  one   particularly 

1  Diary.  See  also  the  entries  for  19  October,  1666,  and  25  June,  1667;  and 
p.  45,  supra. 

2  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Precedents,  pp.  525-8.  The  establish- 
ment is  printed  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  189-92. 

2  Hollond,  Discourses,  p.  353.    Macaulay  describes  the  abuse,  but  is  silent 
concerning  the  attempts  to  remedy  it  (History  of  England,  i.  148). 
*  Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  iii.  367. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NA\^^  67 

flagrant  case  of  1675  to  offer  the  delinquent  commander  the 
alternative  of  imprisonment  until  trial  by  court-martial,  or 
forfeiting  the  whole  of  his  pay  for  the  voyage,  and  '  making 
good  to  the  poor  of  the  Chest '  at  Chatham  out  of  his  own 
purse  the  value  of  the  freight  of  the  merchants'  goods  brought 
home  by  him'. 

The  absence  of  commanders  from  their  ships  without  leave 
gave  a  good  deal  of  trouble  during  the  period  1673-9.  O'^ 
I  October,  1673, the  Commissioners  of  the  Admiralty  ordered 
that  the  commanders  should  be  '  pricked  out  of  pay  '  for  such 
absences-;  but  on  25  May,  1675,  Pepys  observes  '  with  much 
trouble '  that  the  '  late  resolutions '  '  are  already  forgotten,' 
commanders  '  appearing  daily  in  the  town  '  without  leaved 
On  9  July  he  '  spied  '  the  captain  of  the  Lark  '  at  a  distance 
sauntering  up  and  down  Covent  Garden,  as  I  have  too  often 
heretofore  observed  him  spending  his  time  when  the  King's 
service  required  his  attendance  on  shipboard,  as  it  doth  at 
this  day — a  practice  which  shall  never  pass  my  knowledge 
in  any  commander  (be  he  who  he  will)  without  my  taking 
notice  of  it  to  his  Majesty  and  my  Lords  of  the  Admiralty.'-* 
Three  years  later  complaints  of  this  kind  became  very  fre- 
quent, and  so  to  the  end  of  Pepys's  first  Secretaryship  in 
1679.  On  24  March,  1678,  he  writes:  '  I  must  confess  I  have 
never  observed  so  frequent  and  scandalous  instances  as  I  do 
at  this  day  by  commanders  hovering  daily  about  the  Court 
and  town,  though  without  the  least  pretence  for  it.'''  '  I  would 
to  God,'  he  writes  on  29  June  to  Sir  Thomas  Allin,  'you 
could  offer  me  something  that  may  be  an  effectual  cure  to 
the  liberty  taken  by  commanders  of  leaving  their  ships  upon 
pretence  of  private  occasions,  and  staying  long  in  town,  to 
the  great  dishonour  of  his  Majesty's  service,  and  corrupting 

'   Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  iv.  233,  243,  24'^. 
'^  Ih.  ii.  182.  ^  lb.  iv.  1 10. 

«  lb.  iv.  178.  "  lb.  vi.  480. 


68  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

the  discipline  of  the  Navy  by  their  example... it  seeming 
impossible  as  well  as  unreasonable  to  keep  the  door  con- 
stantly barred  against  commanders'  desires  of  coming  to 
town  upon  just  and  pressing  occasions  of  their  families,  and 
of  the  other  hand  no  less  hard  upon  the  King  that  his  gra- 
cious nature  as  well  as  his  service  should  be  always  liable  to 
be  imposed  upon  by  commanders,  as  often  as  their  humours, 
pleasures,  or  (it  may  be)  vices  shall  incline  them  to  come 
ashore.  Pray  think  of  it  and  help  me  herein,  for,  as  I  shall 
never  be  guilty  of  withstanding  any  gentleman's  just  occa- 
sions and  desires  in  this  matter,  so  I  shall  never  be  able  to 
sit  still  and  silent  under  the  scandalous  liberties  that  I  see 
every  day  taken  by  commanders  of  playing  with  his  Ma- 
jesty's service,  as  if  it  were  an  indifferent  matter  whether 
they  give  any  attendance  on  board  their  ships,  so  as  they 
have  their  wages  as  if  they  did.'^ 

The  official  correspondence  of  1673-9,  although  it  reveals 
a  grievous  laxity  of  discipline^,  exhibits  Pepys  himself  in  a 
favourable  light.  He  had  a  high  sense  of  the  honour  of  the 
service,  and  shewed  himself  both  firm  and  humane  in  his 
dealings  with  his  official  inferiors.  He  was  at  great  pains  to 
keep  himself  informed  of  the  proceedings  of  the  commanders, 
and  when  breaches  of  discipline  were  reported  to  him,  he 
took  infinite  trouble  to  arrive  at  the  facts.  His  admonitions 
to  the  offenders,  though  sometimes  a  little  unctuous,  are  as 
a  rule  in  the  best  Pepysian  style. 

The  decay  of  discipline  in  the  Restoration  period  has 
been  associated  by  some  writers  with  the  practice  of  appoint- 
ing '  gentlemen  captains '  without  experience  to  inipeaftant 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  vii.  296. 

2  Pepys,  in  a  letter  of  3  February,  1674,  addressed  to  Captain  Rooth,  refers 
to  ' the  universal  loss  of  discipline  amongst  the  seamen  of  England,'  'a  vice 
which  I  pray  God  grant  I  may  see  rectified  before  it  prove  too  fatal,  not  only  to 
his  Majesty's  service,  but  to  the  whole  navigation  of  the  country'  {Admiralty 
Letters,  iii.  78). 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  69 

commands  at  sea.  The  matter  is  discussed  by  Macaulay, 
picturesquely  but  with  exaggeration*;  Pepys,  in  the  Diary, 
quotes  Coventry  as  referring  to  the  '  unruliness '  of  the 
'young  gentlemen  captains  '-  and  confessing  '  that  the  more 
of  the  cavaliers  are  put  in,  the  less  of  discipline  hath  followed 
in  the  fleet '';  and  a  Restoration  paper  printed  in  Charnock's 
Marine  Architecture*  ver\'  much  shocks  that  author  by  its 
'illiberal  and  improper  observations'  on  the  subject.  He 
admits,  however,  that  '  there  certainly  appears  much  truth 
and  solidity  in  the  general  principle  of  them,'  though  '  it 
might  have  been  wished  for  the  sake  of  decency  and  pro- 
priety '  that  the  writer  '  had  conveyed  his  animadversions  in 
somewhat  less  vulgar  terms.'  The  victim  of  Charnock's 
criticism  traces  every  kind  of  evil  to  the  year  1660,  when 
'  gentlemen  came  to  command  in  the  navy.'  These  '  have 
had  the  honour  to  bring  drinking,  gaming,  whoring,  swearing, 
and  all  impiet}'  into  the  navy,  and  banish  all  order  and 
sobriety  out  of  their  ships  ' ;  they  have  cast  their  ships  away 
for  want  of  seamanship*;  they  have  habitually  delayed  in 
port  when  they  should  have  been  at  sea ;  a  gentleman  captain 
will  bring  '  near  twenty  landmen  into  the  ship  as  his  footmen, 
tailor,  barber,  fiddlers,  decayed  kindred,  volunteer  gentle- 
men or  acquaintance,  as  companions,'  and  these  'are  of 
Bishop  Williams's  opinion,  that  Providence  made  man  to 
live  ashore,  and  it  is  necessity  that  drives  him  to  sea.'  The 
writer  concludes  that  '  the  Crown  will  at  all  times  be  better 
able  to  .secure  trade,  prevent  the  growth  of  the  naval  strength 
of  our  enemy,  with  ;^  100,000  under  a  natural  sea  admiralty 
and  seamen  captains... than  with  three  times  that  sum  under 
land  admirals  and  gentlemen  captains  not  bred  tarpaulins.' 

'  History  of  England,  i.  147-9.  •^  Diary,  17  July,  1666. 

3  Diary,  ijune,  1663.  C/l  also  10  January,  20  October,  1666;  29june,  1667. 
*  Vol.  i.  pp.  Ixxiv-xcv. 
6  Cf.  Diary,  28  October,  1666. 


70  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

With  some  qualifications  this  is  the  view  of  Pepys.  He  dis- 
claims hostility  to  gentlemen  captains  as  such ;  but  he  quotes 
from  a  speech  delivered  by  Colonel  Birch  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  in  which  he  had  urged  that  one  of  the  '  present 
miscarriages '  of  the  navy  is  that  '  employment  and  favour 
are  now  bestowed  wholly  upon  gentlemen,  to  the  great  dis- 
couragement of  tarpaulins  of  Wapping  and  Blackwall,  from 
whence... the  good  commanders  of  old  were  all  used  to  be 
chosen.'i  Pepys  also  refers  to  the  liberty  taken  by  gentlemen 
commanders  of '  thinking  themselves  above  the  necessity  of 
obeying  orders,  and  conforming  themselves  to  the  rules  and 
discipline  of  the  Navy,  in  reliance  upon  the  protection  secured 
to  them  therein  through  the  quality  of  their  friends  at  Court.' ^ 
Pepys  himself  was  probably  an  impartial  witness,  for  he  was 
denounced  by  each  side  for  favouring  the  otherl 

It  is  in  a  way  remarkable  that  during  the  period  of  com- 
plaints against  gentlemen  captains  we  come  upon  the  first 
establishment  of  an  examination  for  lieutenants.  Towards 
the  end  of  1677  complaints  reached  the  Admiralty  from 
Sir  John  Narbrough,  commanding  in  the  Mediterranean,  of 
the  '  defectiveness '  of  his  lieutenants  '  in  their  seamanship.'^ 
Pepys  also  refers  to  '  the  general  ignorance  and  dulness  of 
our  lieutenants  of  ships '  as  '  a  great  evil '  of  which  '  all  sober 
commanders  at  this  day '  complain.  They  are  '  for  the  most 
part  (at  least  those  of  later  standing)  made  out  of  volunteers, 
who  having  passed  some  time  superficially  at  sea,  and  being 
related  to  families  of  interest  at  Court,do  obtain  lieutenancies 
before  they  are  fitted  for  it.'*  The  result  was  the  adoption 
on  18  December  of  a  regular  establishment^  drawn  up  by 

^  Letter  to  Sir  John  Holmes,  15  April,  1679  (Pepysian  MSS.,  Admiralty 
Letters,  ix.  206). 

2  Letter  to  the  same,  18  April,  1679  (ib.  ix.  214). 

'*  Ib.  ix.  242-3.  *  Ib.  vi.  231. 

'  Letter  to  Sir  John  Kempthorne,  i  December,  1677  {ib.  vi.  264). 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Precedents,  p.  241. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  71 

Pepys^  '  for  ascertaining  the  duty  of  a  sea-lieutenant,  and  for 
examining  persons  pretending  to  that  office.'  A  Heutenant 
was  required  to  have  served  three  years  actually  at  sea;  to 
be  20  years  of  age  at  least;  to  produce  'good  certificates' 
from  the  commanders  under  whom  he  had  served  of  his 
*  sobriety,  diligence,  obedience  to  order,'  and  '  application  to 
the  study  and  practice  of  the  art  of  navigation,'  as  well  as 
three  further  certificates — from  a  member  of  the  Navy  Board 
who  had  served  as  a  commander,  from  a  flag  officer,  and  from 
a  commander  of  a  first  or  second  rate — '  upon  a  solemn  ex- 
amination,' held  at  the  Navy  Office,  of  '  his  ability  to  judge 
of  and  perform  the  duty  of  an  able  seaman  and  midshipman, 
and  his  having  attained  to  a  sufficient  degree  of  knowledge 
in  the  theory  of  navigation  capacitating  him  thereto.'  Can- 
didates were  sometimes  ploughed'-,  and  this,  as  Pcpys  points 
out,  was  an  encouragement  to  the  '  true-bred  seaman '  and 
greatly  to  the  benefit  of  the  King's  service.  '  I  thank 
God,'  he  writes  in  I678^  'we  have  not  half  the  throng  of 
those  of  the  bastard  breed  pressing  for  employments  which 
we  heretofore  used  to  be  troubled  with,  they  being  conscious 
of  their  inability  to  pass  this  examination,  and  know  it  to 
be  to  no  purpose  now  to  solicit  for  employments  till  they 
have  done  it.' 

To  about  the  same  time  as  the  examination  for  lieutenants 
belongs  another  minor  reform — an  establishment  for  the 
better  provision  of  naval  chaplains.  In  April  or  May,  1677, 
the  King  and  Lords  of  the  Admiralty  re.solved  '  that  no  per- 
sons shall  be  entertained  as  chaplains  on  board  his  Majesty's 
.ships  but  such  as  shall  be  approved  of  by  the  Lord  Bishop 
of  London. '••  The  proposal  originated  in  the  first  instance 
with  Pepys,  who  designed  it  to  remedy  '  the  ill-effects  of  the 
locseness  wherein  that  matter  lay,  with  respect  both  to  the 

'  Admiralty  Letters,  vi.  256.  '^  lb.  vii.  4. 

•  In  a  letter  of  29  M.nrch,  167H  (//'.  vii.  17).  *  lb.  vi.  3. 


72  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

honour  of  God  Almighty  and  the  preservation  of  sobriety 
and  good  discipline  in  his  Majesty's  fleet.'*  The  details  of 
the  scheme  were  more  fully  worked  out  by  resolutions 
adopted  by  the  Admiralty  Commission  on  15  December, 
1677'^. 

An  important  measure  which  had  an  indirect  bearing  upon 
discipline  was  James  II's  '  establishment  about  plate  carriage 
and  allowance  for  captains'  tables,'^  dated  1 5  July,  1686.  The 
title  of  the  establishment  gives  little  indication  of  its  real 
scope;  it  was  designed  to  give  the  Admiralty  a  better  con- 
trol over  ships  on  foreign  service,  and  at  the  same  time  so  to 
improve  the  position  of  the  commanders  as  to  put  them 
beyond  the  reach  of  temptations  to  neglect  their  public  duty 
for  private  gain.  The  preamble  refers  to  the  '  general  dis- 
order '  into  which  the  discipline  of  the  navy  has  '  of  late 
years'  fallen,  and  especially  to  the  particular  evil  arising 
from  '  the  liberty  taken  by  commanders  of  our  ships  (upon 
all  opportunities  of  private  profit)  of  converting  the  service 
of  our  said  ships  to  their  own  use,  and  the  total  neglect  of 
the  public  ends  for  which  they,  at  our  great  charge,  are  set 
forth  and  maintained,  namely,  the  annoying  of  our  enemies, 
the  protecting  the  estates  of  our  trading  subjects,  and  the 
support  of  our  honour  with  foreign  princes.'  Commanders 
are  accordingly  forbidden  to  convey  money,  jewels,  mer- 
chandise, or  passengers  without  the  King's  warrant;  and 
copies  of  orders  given  by  admirals  or  commanders-in-chief 
are  to  be  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Admiralty,  as  also 
interim  reports  of  proceedings,  and  a  complete  journal  at 

^  Admiralty  Letters,  vi.  i8,  45.    See  also  vi.  19  and  Naval  Minutes,  p.  81. 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Precedents,  p.  161.  The  substance  of 
these  resolutions  is  given  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  206.  See  also  there 
the  new  instructions  of  20  October,  1685,  for  the  guard-boats  in  Chatham  and 
Portsmouth  harbours  (i.  208). 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Precedents,  p.  245.  Printed  in  Pepys's 
Memoires  (Oxford  reprint),  pp.  55-68, 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  73 

the  end  of  the  voyage.  In  consideration  of  these  require- 
ments, commanders  are  to  receive  substantial  additional 
allowances  '  for  the  support  of  their  tables,'  ranging  from 
£S;^  a  year  to  jC2S0  according  to  the  ship's  rate. 

The  reign  of  James  II  was  in  a  peculiar  degree  a  period 
of  the  framing  and  revising  of  '  establishments,'  and  on 
13  April,  1686,  a  new  establishment  was  made  concerning 
'volunteers  and  midshipmen  extraordinary.'^  This  appears 
to  be  a. confirmation  of  an  earlier  establishment  of  4  May, 
1676,  designed  to  afford  encouragement  'to  families  of  better 
quality. .  .to  breed  up  their  }'ounger  sons  to  the  art  and  prac- 
tice of  navigation  '  by  '  the  bearing  several  young  gentlemen, 
to  the  ends  aforesaid  '  on  board  the  King's  ships  as  '  volun- 
teers,' and  to  provide  employment  for  ex-commanders  or 
lieutenants  by  carrying  them  as  '  midshipmen  extraordinary' 
over  and  above  the  ordinary  complement  assigned  to  the 
ship  m  which  they  sailed.  Another  'establishment'  of  the 
same  period  is  that  of  November,  1686,  for  boatswains'  and 
carpenters'  sea  stores^ 

During  the  earlier  part  of  Pepys's  second  Secretaryship, 
drunkenness  gave  a  good  deal  of  trouble.  For  instance,  in 
1685  the  commander  of  the  Diauiond  complained  that  his 
officers  were  '  sottish,  and  unfit  to  serve  the  King,'  particu- 
larly the  gunner,  who  was  '  dead  drunk  in  his  cabin  when  the 
powder  was  to  be  taken  out.'*  Pepys  refers  on  5  August, 
1684,  to  'the  generality  of  that  vice,  now  running  through  the 
whole  navy,''*  and  on  4  February,  1685,  he  writes,  '  Till  that 
vice  be  cured,  which  I  find  too  far  spread  in  the  navy,  both 
by  sea  and  land,  I  do  despair  of  ever  seeing  his  Majesty's 
service  therein  to  thrive,  and  as  I  have  given  one  or  two 

'    I'cpysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  Naval  Pretedents,  p.   156. 

-  lb.  J).  639.    lioth  these  establishments  are  more  fully  described  in  Catalogue 
of  Pepysian  MSS.,  pp.  713-16. 

•'  Admiralty  Letters,  xi.  372.  *  lb.  x.  89. 

5—5 


74  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

instances  of  my  care  therein  already,  so  shall  I  not  fail  by  the 
grace  of  God  to  persevere  in  it,  as  far  as  I  am  able,  till  it  be 
thoroughly  cured,  let  it  light  where  it  will.'^  In  these  efforts 
the  Secretary  of  the  Admiralty  was  soon  to  be  powerfully 
supported  by  the  new  King,  '  there  being  no  one  vice,' 
Pepys  writes  on  15  February,  1685,  'which  can  give  more 
just  occasion  of  offence  to  his  Majesty  than  that  of  drunken- 
ness, for  the  restraining  which,  as  well  in  the  navy  as  in 
every  other  part  of  the  service,  I  well  know  he  has  immove- 
ably  determined  to  have  the  severest  means  used,  nor  shall 
I  in  my  station  fail  (according  to  his  commands  and  my 
duty)  to  give  my  helping  hand  thereto.'^ 

In  connexion  with  discipline  it  may  be  mentioned  that 
even  as  early  as  the  Restoration  there  were  labour  troubles 
in  the  dockyards.  In  1663  a  separate  room  was  applied  for  in 
the  new  storehouse  at  Portsmouth  for  use  as  a  workroom, 
^as  seamen  and  carpenters  will  never  agree  to  work  together.'^ 
In  the  same  year  the  clerk  of  the  Portsmouth  ropeyard  com- 
plained of  the  workmen  employed  there.  By  hasty  spinning 
they  finished  what  they  called  a  day's  work  by  dinner-time, 
and  then  refused  to  work  again  till  four  o'clock.  '  Yesterday,' 
he  writes,  'about  twenty-five  of  them  left  the  work  to  go  to 
the  alehouse,  where,  I  think,  they  remain.'^  On  26  March, 
1664,  the  shipwrights  and  caulkers  at  Deptford  are  com- 
plained of  because  they  work  very  slowly,  and  '  give  ill 
language'  when  pressed  to  work^  Later  on,  in  January, 
1 67 1,  Commissioner  John  Cox  appears  to  have  had  almost 
as  much  trouble  with  the  master  workmen  and  their  instru- 
ments in  Chatham  dockyard.    They  were  remiss  in  their 


^  Admiralty  Letters,  x.  310.  ^  /(j_  x.  331. 

2  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  Ixix.  43. 

*  lb.  Ixxviii.  105.    See  also  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,   1663-4, 
pp.  244  and  276. 

*  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Charles  II,  xcv.  147. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  75 

attendance,  and  met  his  efforts  at  their  amendment  by  pas- 
sive resistance'. 

The  two  great  shipbuilding-  years  of  our  period  were  1666 
and  1679 — the  first  accounted  for  by  the  Second  Dutch 
War,  and  the  latter  by  the  Act  of  1677  for  thirty  new  ships 
to  which  I  have  already  referred-.  How  much  was  done 
during  the  Restoration  period  to  strengthen  the  navy  on  its 
material  side  can  be  realised  by  a  comparison  made  in 
tabular  form  in  Pep>'s's  Register  of  Ships'\  In  1660  the  navy 
consisted  of  156  vessels,  in  1688  of  173;  but  a  comparison  of 
numbers  gives  no  adequate  idea  of  relative  strength.  In  1660 
there  were  only  3  first  rates  as  against  9  in  1688;  second 
rates,  11  at  both  dates;  third  rates,  16  against  39;  fourth 
rates,  45  against  41;  fifth  rates,  37  against  2;  sixth  rates, 
23  against  6 — shewing  that  the  tendency  had  been  to  build 
bigger  ships.  In  1660  there  were  only  30  ships  of  the  first 
three  rates,  but  in  1688  the  number  was  nearly  doubled, 
rising  to  59.  Another  feature  in  the  table  is  the  development 
of  the  fireship  and  the  yachts  In  1660  there  were  no  fire- 
ships  in  the  navy;  in  1688,  26,  In  1660  there  was  one  yacht, 
and  in  1688  there  were  14.  The  strength  of  the  fleet  may  also 
be  tested  in  another  way,  by  comparing  tonnage,  men,  and 
guns'.  In  1660  the  tonnage  was  62,594;  in  1688,  101,032, 
In  1660  the  number  of  men  borne  on  the  sea  establishment 
was  19,551;  in  1688,41,940.  In  1660  the  total  number  of 
guns  was  4,642 ;  in  1688,6,954. 

'   Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1671,  p.  44. 

'  p.  31,  supra.  A  list  of  these  ships  is  printed  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian 
MSS.,  i.  223. 

'  Jb.  i.  304.  The  whole  of  Pepys's  Register,  with  a  number  of  illustrative 
tables,  is  printed  there  on  pp.  253-306  ;  as  also  his  Register  of  Sea-Commission 
Officers  on  pp.  307-43.v 

*  Another  iiuvelty  of  the  period  is  the  revival  of  the  galley  in  the  English 
navy.    This  is  fully  discussed  in  iO.  i.  227-8. 

»  /b.u  306. 


76  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

In  connexion  with  guns,  the  important  achievement  of 
the  period  was  the  systematising,  under  the  methodical  hand 
of  Pepys,  of  the  arrangements  for  determining  the  number 
and  type  of  the  armament  of  each  rate,  and  the  number  of 
men  required  to  work  it.  In  1677  he  drew  up  a  'general 
establishment'  of  men  and  guns^  and  this  was  officially 
adopted  as  '  a  solemn,  universal,  and  unalterable  adjustment 
of  the  gunning  and  manning  of  the  whole  fleets' 

Let  me  now  sum  up  briefly  our  general  conclusions. 

In  the  light  of  the  facts  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  set 
out  in  these  lectures,  the  old  notion  that  the  naval  adminis- 
tration of  the  Interregnum  was  pious  and  efficient  and  that 
of  the  Restoration  immoral  and  slack  appears  crude  and 
unsatisfying.  But  there  is  this  element  of  truth  in  it — that 
vigorous  efforts  for  the  regeneration  of  the  navy  were  to  a 
certain  extent  rendered  abortive  by  the  corruption  of  the 
Court  and  the  lowness  of  the  prevailing  political  tone.  Able 
and  energetic  reformers  were  baffled  by  want  of  money,  and 
this  was  due  partly  to  royal  extravagance  and  partly  to 
unsatisfactory  relations  with  Parliament,  which  suspected 
peculation  and  waste.  Discipline  also  was  undermined  by 
the  introduction  into  the  service  of  unfit  persons,  who  ob- 
tained admission  and  were  protected  from  the  adequate 
punishment  of  their  delinquencies  by  the  interest  of  persons 
of  quality  at  Court.  Further,  an  atmosphere  was  created 
which  enervated  some  of  the  reformers  themselves.  It  is 
remarkable  that  in  spite  of  these  drawbacks  so  much  should 
have  been  accomplished.  The  facts  and  figures  contained  in 
the  naval  manuscripts  in  the  Pepysian  Library  go  a  long 

^  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2866,  Naval  Minutes,  p.  61. 

^  Pepysian  ^ISS.,  Admiralty  Letters,  vi.  201-2.  This  establishment  is  given 
in  Pepysian  MSS.,  No.  2867,  ^a'val  Precedents,  p.  202,  and  the  tables  there 
given  are  printed  and  fully  discussed  in  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  234-42. 
See  also  pp.  242-4  for  the  reorganisation  of  the  Office  of  the  Ordnance  in  1683. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  77 

way  to  justify  the  claims  made  by  Pepys  on  behalf  of  the 
administrations  with  which  he  himself  was  connected,  and 
particularly  on  behalf  of  the  Special  Commission  of  1686, 
which,  as  he  says,  '  raised  the  Navy  of  England  from  the 
lowest  state  of  impotence  to  the  most  advanced  step  towards 
a  lasting  and  solid  prosperity  that  (all  circumstances  con- 
sidered) this  nation  had  ever  seen  it  at.'^  The  characteristic 
vices  of  the  Restoration,  as  he  describes  them,  are  all  there — 
*  the  laziness  of  one,  the  private  business  or  love  of  pleasure 
in  another,  want  of  method  in  a  third,  and  zeal  to  the  affair 
in  most ' — but  except  during  the  period  1679  to  1684  there 
was  no  abject  incompetence  and  some  steady  progress. 
Even  Charles  II  understood  '  the  business  of  the  sea,'-  '  pos- 
sessed a  transcendent  mastery  in  all  maritime  knowledge,'-' 
and  when  he  was  acting  as  Lord  High  Admiral  transacted 
a  good  deal  of  naval  business  with  his  own  hand^  James  II 
was  a  real  authority  upon  shipbuilding^  took  an  interest  in 
the  details  of  administration",  recognised  the  importance  of 
discipline,  and  might  have  restored  it  if  destiny  had  not  inter- 
vened. But  much  more  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  methodical 
industry  of  their  great  subordinate,  and  to  his  '  daily  eye  and 
hand  '  upon  all  departments  of  naval  affairs.  His  vitality  of 
character  and  variety  of  interests  appear  in  the  Diary,  but 
from  his  official  correspondence  we  get  something  different; 
for  in  a  document  which  is  so  true  to  human  nature  as  the 
Diary,  it  is  almost  inevitable  that  the  diarist,  although  suffi- 
ciently self-satisfied,  should  be  quite  unconscious  of  his 
strongest  points.  We  should  expect  business  habits  in  a 
Government  official,  but  in  his  correspondence  Pepys  ex- 

'  Metnoires  (Oxford  reprint),  p.  130. 

-  I'epysian  MSS.,  No.  2866,  Naval  Minutes,  p.  76. 

^  Derrick,  Memoirs  0/ the  Royal  Navy,  p.  84. 

*  For  instances  of  this  see  Catalogue  of  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  546  nn. 

*  I'epysian  }>\?,':>.,  Aiimiralty  Letters,  xi.  200;  xii.  71,  91,  200;  xiii.  23. 

*  Catalogue  oj  Pepysian  MSS.,  i.  247  ;/. 


78  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

hibits  a  methodical  devotion  to  business  which  is  beyond 
praise.  We  have  here  sobriety  and  soundness  of  judgment; 
a  sense  of  the  paramount  importance  of  discipline,  and  the 
exercise  of  a  steady  pressure  upon  others  to  restore  it  in  the 
navy;  a  high  standard  of  personal  duty,  which  permits  no 
slackness  and  spares  no  pains;  and  a  remarkable  capacity 
for  tactful  diplomacy.  The  decorous  self-satisfaction  of  the 
Diary  has  been  replaced  in  later  years  by  professional  pride ; 
and  an  outlook  upon  business  affairs  which  had  always  been 
intelligent,  has  become  profoundly  serious.  The  agreeable 
vices  of  the  Diary  suggest  the  light  irresponsible  cavalier. 
The  official  correspondence  suggests  that  Pepys  was  a  Puri- 
tan at  heart,  although  without  the  Puritan  rigidity  of  practice 
or  narrowness  of  view.  In  his  professional  career  he  exhibits 
precisely  those  virtues  which  had  made  the  naval  adminis- 
tration of  Blake's  time  a  success — the  virtues  of  the  Inde- 
pendent colonels  who  manned  the  administrative  offices 
during  the  First  Dutch  War.  The  change  is  that  from  the 
rather  dissolute-looking  young  Royalist  painted  by  Lely 
about  1669  to  the  ample  wig  and  pursed  official  lips  of  the 
later  portrait  by  Kneller^ 

It  is  not  surprising  that  a  man  so  observant, so  experienced, 
and  so  absorbed  in  the  navy  should  have  drawn  the  moral 
of  the  naval  history  of  his  own  time.  In  his  Memoires  of  the 
Royal  Navy"^,  the  only  work  which  he  ever  acknowledged  ^ 
Pepys  states  the  essential  '  truths '  of  the  '  sea  oeconomy '  of 
England,  which  are  as  valid  to-day  as  when  he  wrote  them 
down — '  that  integrity  and  general  (but  unpractised)  know- 
ledge are  not  alone  sufficient  to  conduct  and  support  a  Navy 

^  Both  these  portraits  are  at  Magdalene  College,  the  former  in  the  Hall  and 
the  latter  in  the  Library. 

2  Oxford  reprint,  p.  130. 

^  The  Portugal  History,  or  a  Relation  of  the  Troubles  that  happened  in  the 
Court  of  Portugal  in  the  years  1667  '^^'^  1668... dy  S.  P.  esq.  (1677)  ^^^  ^Iso 
been  attributed  to  him. 


AND  THE  ROYAL  NAVY  79 

so  as  to  prevent  its  declension  into  a  state  little  less  unhappy 
than  the  worst  that  can  befall  it  under  the  want  of  both';  'that 
not  much  more  (neither)  is  to  be  depended  on  even  from 
experience  alone  and  integrity,  unaccompanied  with  vigour 
of  application,  assiduity,  affection,  strictness  of  discipline, 
and  method  ';  but  that  what  is  really  needed  is  '  a  strenuous 
conjunction  of  all  these.'  For  himself  he  claims  due  credit, 
for  it  was  'a  strenuous  conjunction  of  all  these  (and  that 
conjunction  only)'  that  redeemed  the  navy  in  1686. 

An  anonymous  admirer'  wrote  of  Pepys  as  'the  great 
treasurer  of  naval  and  maritime  knowledge,'  who  was  '  aequi- 
ponderous '  to  his  colleagues  '  in  moral,  and  much  superior 
in  philosophical  knowledge  and  the  universal  knowledge  of 
the  ceconomy  of  the  navy.'  Modern  eulogies  are  phrased 
more  simply,  but  we  may  fairly  claim  for  this  great  public 
servant  that  he  did  more  than  anyone  else  under  a  King 
who  hated  'the  very  sight  or  thoughts  of  business'^  to  apply 
business  principles  to  naval  administration. 

^  Letter  to  tfu  Earl  of  Marlhorouf^h,  by  T.  H.,  possibly  Thomas  Hayter, 
Pepys's  clerk,  who  succeeded  him  in  1673  as  Clerk  of  the  Acts. 
^  Diary,  15  May,  1663. 


INDEX 


Absence  of  commanders,  67 
Abuses  in  the  navy,  5-10 
Administration,  18-36 
Admiralty  commissions :   1659-60,  18; 

1673-79.  30;  1679-84.  32;  special 

commission  of  1686,  34,  48 
Aldeburgh,  49 
Algiers,  35 
Allin,  Sir  Thomas,  comptroller  of  the 

navy  •24,  67 
Anglesey,    Earl   of,   treasurer  of  the 

navy,  24 

Bagwell,  Mr,  46 

Barber  Surgeons,  Company  of,  39 

Barlow,  Thomas,  clerk   of  the  acts, 

21 

Batten,  Lady,  20 

Sir   William,  surveyor  of  the 

navy,  20,  24 

Berkeley,  Lord,  commissioner  of  the 
navy,   22 

Billingsgate,  45 

Birch,  Colonel,  70 

Black  Book  of  the  Admiralty,  3 

Blackwall,  70 

Blake,  Robert,  22,  23,  78 

Boatswains'  stores,  establishment  for 
('686),  73 

Boteler,  Captain,  62 

Bowles,  Phineas,  secretary  of  the  ad- 
miralty, 36 

Bristol,  39 

Brouncker,  Lord,  commissioner  of  the 
navy,  25,  33 

Cabins,  establishment  for  (1673),  ^^ 

'  Calentures,'  62,  63 

Capel,    Sir  Henry,    commissioner   of 

the  admiralty,  32 
Captains'    tables,    establishment    for 

{1686),  72 
Carpenters'  stores,  establishment  for 

(1686),  73 


Carteret,  Sir  George,  treasurer  of  the 

navy,    19,  24 
Chaplains,  establishment  for  (1677),  71 
Charles  I,   19,  21 
-; —    n,  4,  18,  33,  43,  44,  54  ;  his 

interest  in  the  sea,   19,  31,  33,  77 
Chatham,  22,  45,  46,  49,  65,  72  «.,  74 

Chest,  51,  67 

Civil  War,  48 
Clerk  of  the  Acts,  18 

Cocke,  Captain,  hemp  contractor,  29 

Cockerell,  Pepys,   11 

Coke,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  16 

Commissions:  of  1608,  5,  8;  of  1618,5; 
of  1626,  5  ;  for  sick  and  wounded 
(i664and  1672),  48,  49;  for  widows 
and  orphans  {1673),  49;  see  also 
Admiralty  Commissions 

Commons,  House  of,   31,  70 

Commonwealth,  37,  48 

Comptroller  of  the  Navy,   18 

Cordage,  abuses  in,   10 

Cottenham,  Earl  of,  1 1 

Covent  Garden,  67 

Coventry,  Sir  William,  commissioner 
of  the  navy,  13,  20,  25,  27,  55  w., 
69;  his  financial  scheme  (1667),  41 

Cox,  John,  74 

Dartmouth,  49 

'  Dead  pays,'  7,  54 

Deal,  49 

Deane,  Sir  Anthony,  commissioner 
of  the  navy,  31,  32;  his  appointment 
on  the  Special  Commission  of  1686, 
35,  36;  \n%  Doctrine  of  Naval  Archi- 
tecture, 3 

Richard,   55 

Deptford,  22,  46,  65,  74 
Devonshire,  46 

Discipline  of  the  navy,  64-75;  Act  of 

1661,  64 
Dockyards,  troubles  in,  45,  46,  74 
Dover,  49 


INDEX 


8i 


Drunkenness  in  the  navy,   73 

Dugdale,  Sir  William,    i 

Dutch  Wars:  first,  40,  78;  second, 
24j  27,  38,  40  «.,  44,  48,  ^^,  58, 
75;  third,  30,  42,  47,  49,  56,  60 

Edward  \'I,   21 

Embezzlement,  Act  against  (1664),  64 

Evelyn,  John,  i,  3,  25;  commissioner 

for  sick  and  wounded    (1664   and 

1672),  48,  49,  50 

Finance,   27,  37-56 

Finch,  Daniel  (afterwards  Earl  of  Not- 
tingham), commissioner  of  the  ad- 
miralty, 32 

Fireships,  75 

France,  43 

French  Admiralty,  report  from,  34 

Galleys,  75  «. 

Gauden,  Sir  Denis,  victualler  of  the 
navy,    29,  58,  59 

Gentlemen  captains,  68 

Gosport,  49 

Gravesend,  49,  50 

'Gromets',  52 

Grove,  Captain,  29 

Guardboats  at  Chatham  and  Ports- 
mouth, instructions  for  {1685),  72  «. 

Gunfleet,  63 

Guns,  75;  establishment  for  (1677),  76 

'  Haberdine,'  61 

Half- pay,  56 

Harbour  wages,  52 

Harwich,  41,  49 

Hawkyns,  Sir  John,   5 

Hayter,  Thomas,  clerk  of  the  acts,  30, 

79  w. 
Hollond,  John  :  his  Discourses  of  the 

Navy,  4 ;  Pepys's  opinion  of  them,  5 
Hull,  45 

Ipswich,  49 

Jamaica,  22, 

James  I,    10,  28 

James,  Duke  of  York  (James  H),   13, 

•9"-'  35.  43.  44.  59-  73-  77;  ap- 
pointed lord  hi{;h  admiral  (1660), 
18;  his  knowlecif^e  of  naval. affairs, 
19;  his  instructions  of  1662,  26; 
resigned  (1673),  30;    went  abroad 


(1679),  32;  his  own  lord  high  ad- 
miral (1685)  34;  withdraws  from 
the  kingdom  (1688),  36 

Kent,   51 

Kneller's  portrait  of  Pepys,   78 

Labour  troubles  in  the  dockyards,  74 

Lawrence,  Mr,  master  shipwright  at 
Woolwich,  36 

Lee,  Sir  Thonuis,  commissioner  of  the 
admiralty,  33 

Lely's  portrait  of  Pepys,  78 

Lieutenants,  examination  for  (167  7),  70 

London,   39,  45,  46,  49 
Bishop  of,    1 4  «.,  71 

Long  Parliament,   48 

Lord  High  Admiral:  Duke  of  York 
appointed  (1660),  18;  in  the  hands 
of  the  King  and  an  admiralty  com- 
mission (1673),  30;  entirely  in  com- 
mission (1679),  32;  restored  to 
Charles  U  (1684),  34;  James  II 
(1685),  34;  lorti  high  admiral's  in- 
structions ( 1662),   26  « 

Lord  Treasurer,  36 

Lowestoft,  24 

Maidstone,  38 

Manuscripts  in  the  Pepysian Library,  2 

Meadows,  Sir  Philip,  3 

Mediterranean,  70;  victualling  con- 
tract in,  62 

Mennes,  Sir  John,  comptroller  of  the 
navy,  24,  45 

Merchants'  goods  in  the  King's  ships, 
66 

Middleton,  Colonel  Thomas,  com- 
missioner and  surveyor  of  the  navy, 
24,  45,  46,  58 

Midshipmen,  establishments  for  (1676 
and  1686),  73 

Monck,  George,  12,  23 

Monson,  Sir  William,  2,  5,  9,  24 

Myngs,  Sir  Christopher,  13,  14 

Narbrough,  Sir  John,  70 ;  on  special 

commission  of  1686,  },^ 
Naval  Discipline  Act  (1661),  64 
Naval  stores,  embezzlement  of,  64 
Navy  Board  :  in  1659,  18  ;  in  1660,  22; 

in  1673,30;  in  1679,  33; in 16S8, 35; 

a  body  of  experts,    18,  23,  27,  30, 

33  ;  its  functions,  26,  50 


82 


INDEX 


North  Foreland,  13 
Northumberland,  Earl  of,  5 
Nottingham,  Earl  of;   see  Finch 

Orange,  Prince  of,  36 
Ordnance  Office,  40,  76  n. 

Parliament,  76;  vote  of  1665,  40;  of 
1666,  41  ;  of  1677,  32 ;  of  1678,  43 

Pay,  rates  of,  52;  continuous  pay  for 
naval  officers,  55  ;  see  also  Wages 

Pearse,  James,  chirurgeon-general  of 
the  navy,  5 1 

Penn,  Sir  William,  commissioner  of 
the  navy,  11,  25  ;  his  Naval  Collec- 
tions, 2 

Pension  Parliament,  31 

Pensions,  56 

Pepys,  John,  clerk  of  the  acts,  30 

Mrs,  20 

Paulina,  11 

Pepys,  Samuel:  clerk  of  the  acts 
(1660),  21;  treasurer  of  Tangier 
commission  (1665),  28;  surveyor- 
general  of  victualling  (1665),  28,  59; 
secretary  of  the  admiralty  (1673),  30; 
his  speech  in  Parliament  (1677),  31; 
involved  in  the  Popish  Plot  and 
resigned  (1679),  32;  second  secre- 
taryship (1684),  34;  deprived  (1689), 
36.  His  projected  history  of  the 
navy,  i,  2;  pronunciation  of  his 
name,  11  ;  the  Diary,  11;  his  offi- 
cial style,  14;  services  to  the  navy, 
16,  77;  question  of  his  corruption, 
28;  a  disciplinarian,  66;  his  views 
on  gentlemen  captains,  70;  on 
drunkenness  in  the  navy,  73;  a 
framer  of  'establishments,'  70,  71 

Pepysian  Library,  1,  49,  76 

Pett,  Peter,  commissioner  of  the  navy, 
22,  38 

Phineas,  7 

Sir  Phineas,  35 

Petty,  Sir  William,  4,  22 

Plate  carriage, establishment  for(i686), 
72 

Plymouth,  49 

'Poor  John,'  61 

Popish  Plot,  32 

Portsmouth,  5,  39,  44,  45,  46,  58, 
72  n.,  74 

Principal  Officers,  18,  35,  41 ;  see  also 
Navy  Board 


Prisoners  of  war,  care  of,  49 

Public  accounts,  commission  of,  41,  54 

Puritans,  37 

Pyend,  Captain  Stephen,  61  n. 

Riot,  Act  against  (1664),  64 
Rochester,  50 
Royal  Society,  4,  25 
Rump  Parliament,  18 
Rupert,  Prince,  commissioner  of  the 
admiralty,  24,  30,  60 

Sandwich,  Earl  of,  21,  58 

Scurvy,  63 

Seymour,  Sir  Edward,  commissioner 

of  the  navy,  26 
Shipbuilding,  75;  Act  of  1677,  31,  75 
Ships : 

Augustine,  60 

Centurion,  43 

Coventry,  58 

Diamond,  73 

Gloucester,  60 

James,  9 

Lark,  67 

Little  Victory,  45 

Pearl,  45 

Reserve,  60 

Rupert,  43 

Swan,  43 
Shipwrights'  Company,  3 
Shish,  Jonas,  46 
Sick  and  wounded  seamen,  48 
Slyngesbie,  Sir  Robert,  comptroller  of 

the  navy,  20,  24;  his  Discourse  of 

the  Navy,  4 
Southampton,  49 
Southwell,  Sir  Robert,  4 
South  wold,  49 

Special  Commission  of  1686,  34,  48 
Spithead,  47  n. 
Stratton,  22 
Surveyor  of  the  Navy,  18 

Tangier,  28,  29 

Test  Act  (1673),  30 

Tickets,  wages  paid  by,  7,  47,  53 

Tilbury  Hope,  9 

Timber,  abuses  in,  10 

Tippetts,  Sir  John,  commissioner  and 

surveyor  of  the  navy,  25,  35 
Tower,  Pepys  sent  to  the,  32 
Treasurer  of  the  Navy,  18 
Treasury  Chamber,  36 


INDEX  83 

Trinity  House,  3  Wapping,  70 

Turenne,  22  Warren,    Sir    William,    timber    con- 
tractor, 28 

Victuallins;,  57-64;    abuses  in,  5,  9;  Warwick,  Sir  Philip,  40 

victualling  'upon  account,'  10,  57,  Watermen's  Hall,  46,  47 

63;  contract  of  1677,  61;  contract  Weymoufh,  49 

for  the  Mediterranean,  62  Wounded    seamen,     scale    of    relief 

Volunteers,  establishments  for  (1676  for  (1685),  51;    see  also  Sick  and 

and  1686),  73  Wounded 

Wages,  abuses  in,  6;   tickets  for,  7,       Yachts,  75 
47'  53;  'dead  pays,'  7,  54  Yarmouth,  49 


CAMBKIDdK  :    PRINTED  BY  J.  B.  PEACE,  M.A.,  AT  THE  UNIVEKblTY  PRESS. 


TJPRARY 


f 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


20m-3,'59(A552s4)476 


AA      000317719 


